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ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 

BEARING CHIEFLY ON 

EDUCATION. 



RICHARD McILWAlNE, D. D., LL. D. 



RICHMOND, VA.: 
Whittet & Sheppbrson, Printers 



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pBSARY of OeNGREfiS. 
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Copyrighted, 1908. 

BY 

Richard McIlwaine. 



PREFACE. 

The leading motive in issuing this volume is to put 
its contents in permanent shape, easily obtainable by 
readers who care to become acquainted with them. Eight 
of its twelve components are already in print but in such 
form as to be inaccessible to most persons. 

The other four numbers (VII-X), connected closely 
with Public School work, are believed to be of equal 
value and in the present state of educational progress 
throughout Virginia and the South to be distinctly in 
accord with it. 

The papers about Hampden-Sidney College give some 
account of the oldest institution for higher education in 
the South, the College of William and Mary alone ex- 
cepted. It still stands after a century and a quarter of 
active collegiate w^ork, and deserves the regard of all 
lovers of sound learning coupled with high ideals of 
personal character. Several of her younger sisters in 
Virginia have outstripped her in equipment and number 
of matriculates but none in fitting men for high and 
noble usefulness in life. The whole volume, especially 
the biographical sketches and the two concluding ad- 
dresses, will be found to contain much adapted to awaken 
the aspirations of ingenuous youth, along with the desire 
to lead pure and honorable lives : "to make the most of 
themselves" as citizens of a free government and im- 
mortal beings, destined to a never-ending existence. 

The Author. 

Ric/imotid, Va., September /, igoS. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Inaugural Address. (Hanipdcn-Sidney, Virginia, June 13, 

1883)., 8 

The Relation and Services of Hampden-Sidney College to 
THE Presbyterian Church and to the Cause of Edu- 
cation and Religion. (Second Presbyterian Church, 
Richmond, Virginia, February 5. 1888)., 21 

Hampden-Sidney College as an Educational Force, From 
the War of the Revolution, to the War Between 
the States. (Memorial Chapel, Hampden-Sidney, 
April 20, 1903)-, 39 

Does College Education Pay? (Issued and circulated about 

1896 or 1897) 66 

Lewis Littlepage Holladay. (Hampden-Sidney Magazine, 

April, 1892) ., 72 

Some Essentials in the Improvement of Our Public 
Schools. (Opera House, Farmville, Virginia, Sep- 
tember 16, 1902) ., 81 

Local Taxation for Public Schools Under the Present 
State Constitution. (Cooperative Education Com- 
mission, University of Virginia, July, 1904)., 96 



6 CONTENTS. Page 

The Relation of the Citizen to the Public Schools. 
(Hampton, Virginia, December 7, 1904, under the 
auspices of tlie Co-operative Education Commission)., 109 

The Family and the School. (Second Presbyterian Church, 

Richmond, January 6, 1905)., 124 

Matthew Fontaine Maury. (The Puljlic School Teachers 
and older Pupils, Manchester, Virginia, April 14, 
1905)., 134 

President William McKinley. (Memorial Service of the 
Constitutional Convention of Virginia, September 19, 
1901)., 153 

Suffrage. (Democratic Conference of the Constitutional 

Convention, January 6, 1902)., 161 



ADDRESSES and PAPERS BEAR- 
ING CHIEFLY ^;^ EDUCATION. 



y 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees: 

IN assuming the duties to which you have called me, 
I do so with diffidence coupled with hopefulness. 
I am abashed when I think that I am to be the successor 
of the Smiths, and of Alexander, Hoge, Gushing, Carroll, 
Maxwell, Sparrow, Green and Atkinson ; but I am com- 
forted by the thought that their virtues are imitable, and 
that their strength was in God. I am cheered, too, by 
the consideration that I am the unanimous' choice of your 
honorable body for this high position ; that your selection 
was not based on friendly solicitation or on evidence 
furnished by others, but upon your own intimate knowl- 
edge of my character, attainments and mode of life, and 
that I have the assurance of your cordial cooperation in 
any efforts I may make to enlarge and extend the use- 
fulness of the College whose interests are entrusted to 
your care. Permit me to say that there is no body of 
gentlemen with whom I would prefer to be associated. 
It has been my fortune to be acquainted with many of 
the good and great, but I have met none whose senti- 
ments and aims seem to me to be more exalted or which 
more entirely secure my sympathy and approval ; and I 
confidently anticipate both profit and pleasure from the 
relations we arc to sustain to one another in the future, 



8 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

I esteem myself happy, too, on being inducted into 
office, to believe that my colleagues in the Faculty arc, 
without exception, "the right men in the right place," 
who could not be profitably exchanged for any others, 
and that they have the entire approval not only of your- 
selves but of all the friends of the College. I will be 
pardoned, I am sure, for special allusion to the unalloyed 
pleasure I feel in the reestablishment of close personal 
relations with our senior professor, who, as my class- 
mate at Hampden-Sidney and room-mate at the Univer- 
sity of Virginia, and the unwavering friend of my whole 
life, is "grappled to my soul with hooks of steel" ; who 
has now served the College longer than any person in its 
history, and with an intelligence, fidelity and success 
surpassed by none, and to whom she owes a debt of 
gratitude which I trust it may be in your power, as I 
know it will be your pleasure, to recognize in some sub- 
stantial form at no distant day. Nor can I forbear to 
express my personal regret that I shall be deprived of the 
counsel and intelligent assistance of Professor Kemper, 
whose kindness and urbanity, together with his zeal for 
the College, have won for him the respectful and afl!ec- 
tionate regard of us all, especially of those whose sons 
at times have needed and received his generous assist- 
ance. I am sure he will carry with him the warm regards 
and best wishes of a host of friends, and that we will 
all be glad to know of his future success and happiness. 
I should be recreant to my feelings did I not make some 
worthy mention of our valued friend and associate, our 
honored ex-President, Dr. Atkinson, of whom I am 
rejoiced to speak as Professor Emeritus of Mental and 
Moral Philosophy, and to say that his name and fame 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 9 

will continue to be linked with those of the College, and 
that if returning health shall permit, his services will still 
be at her command. The silent influence of such a man 
amongst us is a heritage of inestimable value, and should 
the good providence of God restore him to association 
with our young men and to participation in their instruc- 
tion, we will all regard it as a priceless blessing. It is to 
me, too, a pleasing reflection that my official life begins 
here at a time when, by the testimony of all, there is 
enrolled on our catalogue a list of students whose zeal in 
study has never been surpassed, and whose amiable bear- 
ing, and refined demeanor, and gentlemanly conduct do 
honor to the institution of which they are members, and 
give promise of the happiest state of things for the 
future. 

I find much, then, in the Board of Trustees, in the 
Faculty and among the students to encourage me on 
assuming a position which in some of its aspects, will be 
one of difficulty, and the responsibilities of which no wise 
man would willingly seek. And I am persuaded that if 
the members of our institution continue united in mutual 
regard, and stand together in the discharge of their sev- 
eral duties, and all labor in their places for her highest 
interests, it is no uncertain prophecy to say that the 
burdens of none will be too heavy, and that a glorious 
success will crown our eflforts. 

As we gather here to-day, ladies and gentlemen, we 
celebrate the centennial of the corporate life of Hamp- 
den-Sidney. It was in 1783 our College was chartered by 
the Legislature of Virginia and entered upon its career 
of usefulness as one of the collegiate institutions of the 
land, it having previously existed only as a private enter- 
prise under the care of Hanover Presbytery. It was 



10 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

established to be a seat of sound learning, of religion 
and of good morals, and such, under various vicissitudes, 
it has continued, until we find it to-day stronger in every 
real element of streigth (except in its chief officer and the 
number of students) than it has ever been before. Its 
Faculty is larger and more able ; its endowment, lament- 
ably small as it is, is more ample; its surroundings are 
more pleasant ; its friends are more numerous ; its culture 
is broader and higher ; its influence is more salutary and 
extensive; its prospects are brighter than at any former 
period. The labors, prayers and sacrifices of her friends 
in the past have not been in vain. The vigilance of her 
trustees has borne fruit. The self-denials and labors of 
her Faculty have achieved a gratifying success. The love 
of her sons is her strength and hope. Her diploma is 
regarded as one of the best in the land. Her name is 
never mentioned except with respect, for there is here" 
no sham and no pretension, but solid work and useful 
results. 

But having said this, shall we not candidly confess 
that "we have not yet attained, neither are we already 
perfect." The fathers builded wisely. Their descend- 
ants have done something in carrying out their designs. 
Much yet remains to be accomplished. I will not be 
esteemed wanting in reverence if I say that the College 
is not quite up to the demands of the present age in some 
respects, and that while she stands before us as a vener- 
able matron to be loved, and honored, and revered, she 
needs to be more beautifully arrayed, and more tenderly 
cherished, and more bountifully sustained than she has 
been. The loyal hearts of the people of this portion of 
the State, and of the Presbyterians throughout our whole 
Synod, must be rallied to her support. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. ii 

Hampden-Sidney is the only College in Southside 
Virginia, from Piedmont to the sea. It was established 
to meet the wants and contribute to the welfare of this 
entire section, and while Presbyterian in origin, it was J 

designed by expressed enactment to be, as it has always 
been, undenominational in its instructions. Our fathers 
said, "though the strictest regard should be paid to the 
morals of the youth, and worship carried on evening 
and morning in the Presbyterian way, yet, on the other 
hand, all possible care should be taken that no undue 
influence shall be used * * * to bias the judgment 
of any; but that all of every denomination shall fully 
enjoy their own religious sentiments, and be at liberty 
to attend that mode of worship that either custom or 
conscience makes most agreeable to them, when and 
where they may have an opportunity of enjoying it." 

Hampden-Sidney is the only College in Virginia, 
West Virginia and Maryland which, being founded by ^ 
Presbyterians, maintains a prevailing Christian and 
Presbyterian influence. Her usefulness, then, should ex- 
tend to all classes and denominations throughout South- 
side Virginia, and to Presbyterians in the whole Synod 
and to the descendants of Virginia Presbyterians every- 
where. She has claims upon these such as no other 
literary institution can assert, and she must be kept true 
to the mark of securing a high literary and scientific 
education, and at the same time of furnishing that social, 
moral and religious culture, without which our institu- 
tions of higher grade will necessarily degenerate into 
skepticism and immorality. The character of the gentle- 
men who compose the Board of Trustees and Faculty 
gives ample assurance that these high ends will be kept 
continually in view, and our fellow-citizens and brother 



12 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Presbyterians may rest assured, in committing their sons 
to our guidance, that we will do our best to send them 
home, at the end of their college course, not only ripe 
scholars, but refined Christian gentlemen, whose aspira- 
tion in life shall be to do their work well, and to work 
for the cause of truth, and of God, and of their country. 
The question has been widely and seriously raised, 
whether in the present state of American society there 
is any reason for the continued existence of such insti- 
tutions as Hampden-Sidney ? Whether it is not best to 
let our colleges die and to unite our efforts in the up- 
building of our great universities, where scores of pro- 
fessors and thousands of students may be gathered? 
Not to dwell on many arguments adapted to weaken the 
force of this suggestion, it is sufficient to say that the 
tendency of some of our great literary institutions seems 
to be largely skeptical, and their spirit far from what 
serious Christians deem safe for immature youth to come 
in contact with. It is also true that university instruc- 
tion, if it be what it professes, is poorly adapted to meet 
the wants of the class of young men whom the colleges 
aspire to teach and help. It is to be feared, indeed, that 
many so-called universities are badly named, and that a 
much larger proportion of their students are unbcnefittcd 
than those of our faithful and less ambitious colleges. 
It is also clearly a mistake to say that the gathering to- 
gether of very large numbers of professors and students 
is, of itself, conducive to higher effort on the part of 
either, while it is certain that there is involved in it a 
total loss of social communion between the teachers and 
the taught, and of the personal example and stimulus 
which are such important elements in the proper training 
of the young. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 13 

It may also be said that most of the students who 
attend the universities take only such partial courses of 
study as bear directly on their life-work, and that the 
effect of this is hurtfully to narrow the culture of many 
of our professional men. The colleges in their prescribed 
curricula of study now stand before the country as advo- 
cates of broad and generous learning, and are the chief 
opponents of that contracted system of merely technical 
education, which must prove damaging to true scholar- 
ship. Institutions which offer facilities and temptations 
to young men to neglect important branches of liberal 
culture are not to be praised, but blamed, and whatever 
other good qualities they may possess cannot be esteemed 
the peculiar friends of the higher education. If the stu- 
dents prepared for them by the faithful discipline and 
drill of the colleges be stricken from their catalogues 
they will lose a large part of the material from which 
first-rate scholars are to be made. So true is this that 
the most thoroughly pronounced, though the youngest, of 
American universities not only offers inducements of a 
very high order to the graduates of other colleges, but 
has found it necessary to institute a regular collegiate 
department to prepare students for its own university 
classes, the sine qua non of admission to which is a 
diploma from a college of good grade. When our other 
universities shall imitate this honorable example they will 
occupy their true positions. 

But the crowning objection to the abandonment of 
our colleges is the restriction which would at once be 
put on education, for a very small proportion of the 
young men who frequent them would ever be able to 
attend the more distant and expensive universities. 
Society would thus lose the salutary influence of a larga 



14 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

class of educated men, and the depreciation thus occa- 
sioned would be fatally manifest in all the departments of 
business and professional life. It is impossible to esti- 
mate what our colleges have done and are doing for the 
promotion of intelligence, the inculcation of virtue, the 
establishment of freedom and the extension of religion 
among our people ; and it behooves every true patriot, 
no less than every sincere Christian, to cherish these 
institutions as the bulwarks of liberty and the conserva- 
tors of society. 

Another question of even nearer and more practical 
concern to us has been mooted by some of the best 
friends of our college, to wit: whether it would not be 
wise to change its location to some more accessible point, 
and perhaps to the suburbs of onje of our larger cities? 
It is alleged. that remoteness from the great centres of 
life and activity, and from the main lines of travel, want 
of contiguity to a populous community from which many 
students might be drawn, and difficulty of access, to- 
gether with the fact that our situation is in a region not 
naturally rich and fertile, and consequently not likely to 
secure rapid growth and improvement, stand in the way 
of its greatly enlarged usefulness. It is vain to say that 
there is no force in these suggestions. They are impor- 
tant and deserve consideration, and have been thoroughly 
weighed by those who have the interest of the College 
at heart. But these things are not all that can be said 
and deserve to be considered on the subject, and in a 
matter of such importance it behooves us to act with 
much deliberation and on the best advice. 

It is obvious, on the other side of the question, that 
our present location has the prestige of the past in its 
favor. The memories of more than a hundred years 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 15 

cluster about this spot. In days of yore such men as 
Patrick Henry, Wilham Cabell, Sr., Paul Carrington, 
James Madison, John Nash, Nathaniel Venable, Everard 
Meade, Joel Watkins, John Morton, Thomas Reade, 
Peter Johnston and others of Virginia's worthies met 
here to consult for the welfare of the infant institution. 
The affections of many generations of students now alive 
find their focus at this point, and the descendants of 
honored sires who have long since fallen asleep, from all 
parts of our common country, look this way with rever- 
ential, ancestral pride. Union Theological Seminary, too, 
the fair and vigorous and beautiful daughter of 
Hampden-Sidney, in the fullness of her strength and 
usefulness, and destined to scatter yet richer and larger 
blessings over the land through her learned and conse- 
crated sons, sits here by her side, and would be left 
disconsolate at the departure of her mother. Then we 
have a hundred acres of land, the gift a hundred years 
ago of Peter Johnston, the ancestor of many distin- 
guished Virginians, among whom General Joseph E. 
Johnston will ever stand prominent, and many more 
broad acres acquired by gift and purchase from others, 
with a commodious college building and five professional 
residences, with spacious grounds, besides the steward's 
hall, and other appurtenances, which can not have cost 
less than from $60,000 to $75,000, most of which would 
have to be sacrificed by a removal. Then our endow- 
ment, amounting at present to over $100,000, has been 
secured for the institution, located where it is ; and it is 
doubtful whether the wishes of many of the donors 
would be consulted by a change of place. Then, again, 
it is by no means certain that our comparatively secluded 
situation is not a factor of great value in the educational 



i6 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

advantage we offer. There is here as entire freedom 
from temptation to idleness and vice as can be found 
anywhere. Our community, though small, is homoge- 
neous, social, refined, literary and elevated. It is doubt- 
ful whether you can find on earth a higher moral tone 
than exists in old Prince Edward ; the people are among 
the most upright, conscientious and truth-loving in the 
world. Our soil, too, while not rich, is generous, yield- 
ing abundant returns to good treatment, and is destined 
some of these days to be occupied by a large and thrifty 
population. Then we must remember that our location 
is about midway between the mountains and the sea, in 
a section proverbially healthful and free from the di=:- 
eases incident to the higher and lower regions of the 
State, so that during more than a hundred years only 
two students of the College are known to have died of 
disease on this hill ; that our situation is in the midst of 
a population of some 230,000 white people, who have no 
other college in their section ; while on the north of 
James river there are two colleges and a university ; in 
the Valley a college and a university, and in Southwest- 
ern Virginia two colleges, and just on its borders an- 
other. When we consider the Presbyterian population 
of this and other States' from which we may expect to 
draw patronage, our present location has, perhaps, the 
advantage of any other. It is not improbable, too, that 
at t:o distant day a railroad will come to our very doors, 
and that our community will on its advent be enlarged by 
the accession of a desirable population, and even now we 
are only about an hour from direct railroad communica- 
tion with all parts of the country. So that, summing uj) 
the argument on both sides, it seems that the advantage 
is in favor of remaining where we are, and that the ques- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 17 

tion being thus settled, had best be definitely set at rest, 
and the friends of the College throughout our own State 
and elsewhere be summoned to its support in order to 
make it what it ought to be. 

The day has long since passed, if it ever was, w^hen 
it is possible to develop a first-rate literary institution 
without an adequate endowment; and no college in the 
land has higher claim on account of past service, as well 
as because of its possibilities of future usefulness, than 
Hampden-Sidney, Our great want at present is money. 
We have an admirable corps of instructors, but they are 
poorly provided for. One of our professors, a gentle- 
man of high culture, is about to leave us to assume a 
position more attractive in some of its features and with 
an ampler salary. Two others, but for their love of their 
alma mater, would long ago have been drawn off by 
tempting offers from other institutions. It is doubtful 
whether we can retain our younger men permanently 
unless we offer them more substantial inducements than 
at present. A professor ought to receive a salary large 
enough to enable him to support and educate his family 
in comfort, to exercise the rites of cheerful and refined 
hospitality, to secure an abundance of books, periodicals 
and apparatus adapted to his department, and to lay by 
something for his declining years and for his family 
after his decease. This is necessary to his full efficiency 
as well as to the highest welfare of his students, and for 
the reputation of the institution with which he is con- 
nected. But we need funds for other purposes besides 
professors' salaries. There are certain incentives and 
stimuli to proficiency in special departments of study 
through prizes given to their most meritorious students, 
which other higher institutions feel it important to em- 



iS ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

ploy, and which might well be introduced here, were the 
means at hand. Honorable competition would quicken 
effort after excellence, and would tend to elevate the 
general standard of our scholarship and to enhance our 
reputation, by sending forth annually a body of men 
peculiarly distinguished in their special branches of work. 
When we look at the external appearance of things 
about us, a catalogue of wants too long for enumeration 
easily suggests itself. Our college building stands out in 
the open campus, naked and unadorned as it was when 
the finishing toviches were given to it some fifty years 
ago. It is a very fine structure, solidly built and well 
adapted to our purposes ; and the addition of a cupola, of 
porticos in front and rear, of blinds to the windows and 
of some comparatively inexpensive repairs, would make 
it attractive to the eye and delightful as a residence for 
students. Our college grounds, too, capable of beautiful 
arrangement and display, mutely invite us to enrich and 
improve them. The health of our young men also de- 
mands that a well-appointed gymnasium for their physi- 
cal culture shall be secured, so that their bodily strength 
may keep pace with their mental growth, and not be 
sapped and destroyed by it. We need additional appara- 
tus for our chemical, and philosophical, and geological, 
and astronomical, and mathematical departments. We 
must have a library fund, the income of which will pro- 
vide books of reference for our professors and students; 
and a library building, in which, perhaps, more spacious 
halls may be provided for the young gentlemen of the 
literary societies. Will I be thought too sanguine when 
I say that at the earliest practicable moment the old 
kerosene lamp ought to be supplanted on this hill by gas 
or electric light? and that the day may come when an 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 19 

adequate supply of water may be secured not only for 
all the comfortable uses of life, but even to sustain a 
little fountain on the campus, with a little lake fed by 
its refreshing streams, on the margin of which shall 
grow beautiful flowers, begirt on every side by pleasant 
walks hidden among trees and shrubs, upon which the 
boys and girls of that time may promenade on commence- 
ment day, and educate one another in the art of love, 
as their predecessors were accustomed to do amid ruder 
scenes. This may be all a dream, a fancy, an illusion of 
the imagination, but it is pleasant to think of, and will be 
realized if the money can be secured; for the good Book 
says, "money answereth all things," which in this con- 
nection means it will do a great deal for Hampden- 
Sidney — if we can only get it. 

Institutions, like men, are in danger of embracing 
and cherishing an idea with such strength and persistency 
as to exclude other vital truths necessary to a normal and 
healthful development. Such lack symmetry, and while 
they may do valuable work in an important direction, 
they miss their full measure of usefulness by failing to 
pioduce the full-orbed impression which is essential to 
perfectness. In this day no system of education will 
stand the test of examination which overlooks the 
esthetic. "The true, the beautiful and the good" are 
closely related. In the development of our institution, 
with the view of its attaining its highest and largest use- 
fulness, we must put it abreast of our sister colleges in 
all those elements of refined culture which are exerting 
so beneficent an influence in educating the better classes 
of our American society. Hampden-Sidney, looking to 
the mountains on the one hand and to the sea on the 
other, and inviting to her halls aspiring youth from all 



20 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

sections of our common country, must be prepared not 
only to give them a hearty welcome and to conduct them 
into the arcana of sound learning and up to the broad 
plains of high moral and religious life, as she has always 
done, but must also greet them with such surroundings 
and furnish them with such instructions as shall educate 
all the better elements of their natures, and stimulate 
tliem to seek the highest improvement of which they are 
capable and at once to do honor to themselves and credit 
to their College, and be a blessing to their race in their 
future lives. 

Such, gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, is the 
object to which we should address ourselves in the con- 
duct of this venerable institution ! Such is the aim I 
propose for myself, and in which, I am sure, my brethren 
of the Faculty will concur ! Such, we invite our under- 
graduates and alumni and the friends of the College here 
and everywhere to help us to make old Hampden-Sidney, 
so that as she goes forward in the second century of her 
existence she may continually grow more vigorous and 
beneficent, and dispcnce her blessings to Church and State 
in ever-enlarging measure, and everywhere be known, 
and honored and loved, because of the merits of her 
sons. 



THE RELATION AND SERVICES OF 

HAMPDEN-SIDNEY COLLEGE TO THE 

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND TO 

THE CAUSE OF EDUCATION 

AND RELIGION. 

"Because of," or, as the Revised Version puts it, "For the sake 
of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek thy good."— 
Ps. cxxii. 9. 

THE Psalm from which the text is taken is a pane- 
gyric on Jerusalem. The point of view from 
which the Holy City is regarded is as the seat of the 
theocracy, whence proceed the law and government 
under which the temple is maintained and the house of 
God is protected and blessed. "For there are set thrones 
of judgment, the thrones of the house of David." Its 
stability and strength are the defence of Zion; its wel- 
fare is the welfare of the house of God. Therefore, the 
sacred writer continues, "Pray for the peace of Jeru- 
salem ; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within 
thy walls and proseprity within thy palaces. For my 
brethren and my companions' sakes I will now say, Peace 
be within thee. For the sake of the house of the Lord 
our God, I will seek thy good." 

The thought I wish you to seize and appropriate is 
this : that whatever institution is promotive of the inter- 
ests of the church of God appeals to the believer in God 
for his affectionate sympathy and support. Of course, 
this instruction assumes the existence of the fact that 



22 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

the church, as the divine instrument in sanctifying and 
saving men, commands the profound regard of every be- 
hever, whether Jew or Christian. To it are committed 
the oracles of God, the ministry of the word, the admin- 
istration of the sacraments. It is the school of Christ. 
In it are found the means of grace. Out of it, there is 
ordinarily no hope of salvation. 

It must not be forgotten, however, that while the 
church is a divine institute, it is found in the world, is 
surrounded by antagonistic influences, is engaged in con- 
flict with the powers of evil ; and as it has a human side, 
is weak and fallible, and must be maintained through the 
sanctified effort and sacrifices of God's people. Its ex- 
istence on earth in every age has been conditioned on 
strenuous endeavor, and all its advances have been the 
result of suffering and labor and devotion. 

There are three institutions in modern society, closely 
allied to one another, on the conservation of which the 
welfare of mankind depends. These are the family, the 
church, and the state. In the original constitution of 
things they were blended in one, the patriarch of the 
household being at once its priest and its king, as well 
as its father and teacher and guide ; but as the race in- 
creased and society became complicated and interests 
were multiplied and diversified, it was necessary for 
defence and protection, no less than for the culture and 
development of the community, that these three great 
functions should be allotted to three separate and dis- 
tinct, and yet mutually inter-dependent, agencies. From 
the family, as the fountain and nucleus of society, there 
have emerged, on the one hand, the state, and, on the 
other, the church : the state, which is entrusted with the 
secular, material and temporal interests of the commu- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 23 

nity; and the church, to which belong the nurture and 
care of things spiritual and divine, and which ever points 
to God and a better life. Each of these is divine as it 
obtains the sanction, approval and blessing of God, and 
leads up to God. Each is human as it grows out of the 
needs of mankind, exists among men and for men, and 
is administered by men for their own interests and for 
the glory of God and the good of the race. Home, 
church, country! There is magic in these words. They 
awaken the warmest affections of the heart, and solicit 
the most earnest efforts of which the soul is capable. 
Taken separately, each exercises its own peculiar spell. 
Taken together, they constitute the grand motive of life 
— the sum of human duty. 

We, my brethren, can never adequately appreciate 
our indebtedness to Christianity for the blessings which 
we now deem inalienable, nor can we ever sufficiently 
estimate the struggles by which they have been won and 
handed down to us as a birthright. It is fortunate for 
us indeed that we arc descended from a race which, even 
before its conversion to Christianity, possessed many 
domestic virtues, which, when sanctified by the gospel, 
have led up to the sacred conception of the family which 
now exists with us and wherever the Protestant faith 
is accepted and lived in its purity. It is also no less a 
cause for thankfulness that our ancestors, wandering 
away from their remote homes in the far east, and 
settling by successive occupations in northern Europe, 
have, throughout historic times, maintained their love of 
personal independence, and hating tyranny, whether in 
church or state, have ever been ready to defend the right 
and to proclaim the liberty of the subject. It ought, too, 
to be the occasion of never-failing gratitude to us, as it 



24 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

is the source of never-ending blessedness and hope to the 
world, that when it appeared there was no longer room 
in Europe for those who wished to worship God accord- 
ing to the teaching of his word, an asylum was opened 
for them in America, where, after long, persistent and 
successful struggles, it has been assented to and agreed, 
that God alone is Lord of the conscience; that every 
man is a freeman, and that every man's house is his 
castle. 

Now I assert it as a fact, and did time permit, it 
could easily be proved from a large induction of histori- 
cal data, that all this has come to us, directly and in- 
directly, through the influence of the gospel of Christ, 
and that it is to the church of God we are indebted as 
the chief instrumentality in securing this great boon. 
Without stopping to prove this, I remark that, as a fact, 
we find ourselves in the possession of these noble benefits, 
at once the gift of God and a priceless heritage, won by 
honored sires through centuries of strife. We enjoy a 
pure and spotless domestic life; we are members of a 
Christian commonwealth, the church of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and call no man master on earth ; we are citizens 
of a free government, administered by the people and 
for the people, under which every man is equal before 
the law and entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." This grand heritage is ours, and we are 
responsible to ourselves, to our fellowmen and to God for 
its maintenance. And as we look over the world to-day 
and see so large a portion of it sitting in the abomina- 
tions of heathendom, and then to nominal Christendom, 
and behold an imperfect Christianity producing imperfect 
fruit for the welfare and happiness of the people, we 
may well rejoice in the beneficent gifts of a gracious 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 25 

Providence, and determine afresh that, by the help of 
Almighty God, we will defend and preserve them, and 
hand them down, unimpaired and improved, to genera- 
tions yet unborn. They are the purchase of the virtue, 
intelligence and piety of those who have gone before, and 
these are the conditions, and these alone, on which they 
can be conserved and perpetuated. If America is to 
continue the land of the free, and to stand as an inspira- 
tion to the nations of the earth; if the church is to 
remain pure from foreign domination and the dispenser 
of the truth and blessing of God; if our hearthstones 
are to be preserved from contamination and the fires on 
our domestic altars to burn on with a sacred and celestial 
flame, it must be by the conservation and dissemination 
of the principles of morality and religion, intelligently 
embraced as convictions from God's word. 

It was such thoughts as these that filled the hearts, 
and nerved the arms and encouraged the efforts of the 
fathers of the American Revolution, and inspired the 
Christian patriots of that day to build up a government 
based on virtue, enlightenment, and religion. It was this 
impulse which took hold of the founders of the Presby- 
terian Church in Virginia more strongly, perhaps, than 
on any other portion of the people, and led them, even 
in the very throes of the Revolution, to establish institu- 
tions which have ever since proved blessings to the com- 
monwealth and the church of God. These consecrated 
and far-seeing men knew that the struggle in which they 
were engaged was for home, for church, and for country ; 
that every earthly interest was involved in it, and with 
almost inspired prescience foresaw that if freedom were 
won it could be maintained only by intelligent consecra- 
tion to God and the good of society. One of the most 



26 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

interesting pages of American history is to be found in 
the annals of old Hanover Presbytery in these times, and 
one of its most important features is the concern felt and 
the measures adopted to provide for the scholastic, moral, 
and religious education of the youth of the State. 

At a meeting of this venerable body, held in the 
J county of Charlotte, in the year 1774, the subject of 

Christian education was prayerfully considered, and it 
was determined to establish an academy for the educa- 
tion of youth on the east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 
In February, 1775, this institution was located in Prince 
Edward county, was opened for students in January, 
1776, and the spirit of American independence being 
abroad in the land, was named H ampdcn-Sidney , after 
the two English patriots who sealed their love of con- 
stitutional freedom with their blood. The school was at 
once filled to overflowing with students, and among the 
first acts of the Legislature of Virginia after independ- 
ence had been acknowledged, was the incorporation, in 
1783, of Hampden-Sidney College, under a charter broad 
in its provisions and ample in the privileges it conferred. 
In that instrument these memorable words occur : "And 
that, in order to preserve in the minds of the students 
that sacred love and attachment they should ever bear 
to the principles of the present glorious Revolution, the 
greatest care and caution shall be used in electing such 
professors and masters, to the end that no person shall 
be so elected unless the uniform tenor of his conduct 
manifests to the w^orld his sincere afifection for the liberty 
and independence of the United States of America." 

It is worthy of remark that the history of Hampden- 
Sidney has ever been in accord with this patriotic declar- 
ation. Even during the pendency of the Revolution, its 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 27 

students were formed into a company under the com- 
mand of the president, Rev. John Blair Smith, and 
marched to Wilhamsburg and placed at the service of 
the Governor of the Commonwealth. So, too, in the 
war of 1812, the young men, under the command of John 
Kirkpatrick, a late graduate, who was then pursuing his 
theological studies under Rev. Dr. Moses Hoge, the 
president of the college, took part in the defence of 
Norfolk, and were for some time in service. And again, 
in our late war, Captain J. M. P. Atkinson, better known 
to you as my predecessor, led the Hampdcn-Sidney Boys 
out to the field of conflict in defence of what they be- 
lieved to be the rights of constitutional government. 

I mention these things in order that you may see that 
our college has ever been true to the calls of duty, and 
that it has a title to the gratitude of the State and country 
which ought not to be overlooked. 

But my special object at this time is to show the 
claims which Hampden-Sidney has on the Presbyterian 
Church at large, and on the Synod of Virginia and on 
this church in particular. 

My reason for bringing this subject to your attention 
at this juncture is that the time has arrived when it is 
necessary that a large addition shall be made to the funds 
of the college, unless its usefulness is to be greatly im- 
paired. Until recently our appliances and facilities for 
education were fully abreast of those offered by our 
sister colleges. But such advances have been and are 
being made by other institutions, that we are falling 
relatively behind, and must be distanced in the race unless 
efficient and speedy means are used to put our college 
in a foremost position again. Not only have the incomes 
of the University of Virginia and of Washington and 



28 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Lee been enormously increased of late years, but Ran- 
dolph-Macon, and Richmond, and other colleges, are 
going forward with surprising and gratifying rapidity. 
May God bless them all, for they are excellent institu- 
tions, doing excellent work for the church and country ! 
Virginia has nothing in which she has more reason to 
rejoice than her literary institutions. 

But while the Methodists and Baptists are thoroughly 
equipping their colleges and fitting them for enlarged and 
permanent usefulness, shall the Presbyterians of Virginia 
hold back and allow their college to fall behind, and fail 
of the work it ought to achieve? 

We have at Hampden-Sidney a faculty of six profes- 
sors and also a fellow, annually elected to give instruction 
in sub-freshman studies. Our professors are gentlemen 
of marked ability, cultivated scholars, exemplary Chris- 
tians, and most laborious and earnest in the discharge 
of all their duties. We have over one hundred students, 
the sons of our ministers, elders, and Christian people, 
whose general bearing, behavior, and studiousness can- 
not be excelled by any similar number of young men on 
the continent. We have a college building one hundred 
and sixty feet long by forty wide, an excellent structure 
of solid masonry, which, with some improvements, can 
be made all that is wanted in such a building. Besides, 
we have a commodious steward's hall and five profes- 
sorial residences in a fair state of preservation, and in 
addition, we have about two hundred and fifty acres of 
land, on and in the midst of which these buildings stand. 

Our endowment amounts to $110,000, and w^e have 
a building fund of something more than $8,000, which 
we are now endeavoring to increase in order to erect 
buildings absolutely necessary to the well-being of the 
college. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 29 

It will be seen from this statement that we already 
have a good foundation. Our Board of Trustees has 
authorized an effort to raise $250,000 in addition, 
$200,000 for permanent endowment, and $50,000 for 
buildings and improvements. 

As to the location of the college, I may say that I 
regard it one of the most desirable in Virginia. It is in 
a portion of the State where it is greatly needed ; is the 
only institution of high grade in Southside Virginia be- 
tween the mountains and the sea, and is in a region 
proverbially healthful, and distinguished for its moral 
and religious influence. Union Theological Seminary is 
immediately adjacent, and the intercourse maintained 
between the faculties and students of the two institu- 
tions is mutually salutary. Our community is composed 
entirely of the families and students of the college and 
seminary, and cannot be excelled for the genial and 
kindly influence exerted on our young men. The historic 
associations of the place, too, while not computable in 
figures nor measurable by square and compass, are of 
inestimable value in forming the character and moulding 
the life of those committed to us. It is something for 
our young men to feel that they are at a place venerable 
on account of the mighty men who have labored there, 
and full of memories of those who have there been 
trained for life, and have illustrated in their work the 
highest excellencies of which human nature, refined and 
elevated by grace, is capable. 

The needs of Hampden-Sidney are many. It is im- 
possible to administer a college efficiently in these days 
without large funds. This is a progressive age, and any 
institution which is not advancing must retrograde. To 
stand still is to go back. 



30 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

We need a large endowment fund, which will yield 
a regular and permanent annual income, for the pur- 
pose of increasing the support of our hard worked and 
cultured professors. It is with professors as it is with 
preachers and doctors and lawyers and other profes- 
sional men. Adequate support means increased efficiency, 
more thorough consecration, better work. We also need 
more professors. Our faculty ought to consist of ten 
instead of six professors. We need to make large addi- 
tions to our library, and especially to secure such works 
of permanent value connected with our different depart- 
ments of instruction as are being continually issued from 
the press. If we are to have a progressive, live institu- 
tion, our professors and older students must have access 
to the best and latest researches and discoveries which 
are being made by learned men in different parts of the 
world. We need to found scholarships and fellowships 
as encouragements to meritorious students, and to give 
aid to deserving young men struggling in poverty to 
secure the boon of education. Then we need immediately 
a large building for lecture rooms, society halls, library 
room and chapel. This is a want which must be supplied 
ere we can obtain much increase in the number of our 
students or in the enlargement of our influence. We 
also need very much a department of physical culture 
and a gymnasium, with the latest modern appliances for 
the development and training of the physical system. 
The day has long since passed when it is considered safe 
to educate the mind without corresponding attention to 
the body. It is now a recognized fact that there is a 
most intimate connection between the spiritual and physi- 
cal natures. Hygiene has, therefore, come forward as 
an important study, not only for the physician, but for 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 31 

the intelligent layman, and no college can long maintain 
itself which neglects its' theory and practice. I should 
regard the man who will furnish us with a well appointed 
gymnasium as a public benefactor, whose name would 
deservedly be handed down to posterity as an enlightened 
patron of learning. And so I might tell you of other 
things needed in order to make Hampden-Sidney what 
we, as Virginians and Presbyterians, would like to see it. 
I desire that our college shall be the equal of any other 
in the land, so that our people may feel, when they send 
their sons to us, that not only in educational, moral and 
religious advantages they have secured what they Avant, 
but that in every other respect they will obtain all that 
they can get elsewhere. 

And now some of my hearers who have been kind 
enough to listen to me thus far may be ready to say: 
"Yes, we assent to all you urge. The principles you an- 
nounce are true, and the contemplated improvements are 
desirable, but what is that to us? Why bring your 
institution before us in God's house, and on the Sabbath 
day ? What have we to do with it ? What claims has it 
on us?" 

In attempting to reply to these inquiries, which are 
legitimate and proper, and deserve a candid answer, I 
remark that Hampden-Sidney is your college, and de- 
serves your support. The Methodists regard Randolph 
Macon, and the Baptists Richmond College as their col- 
lege, and in the same sense Hampden-Sidney belongs to ^ 
the Presbyterians of the Synod of Virginia. It was ^ 
established by Presbyterians, is administered by Presby- 
terians, and is employed by Presbyterians as their edu- 
cational institution. I suppose that five-sixths of the 
candidates for the ministry and of the sons of ministers 



Z2 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

within the bounds of our Synod, who are in a course of 
collegiate training, are at Hampden-Sidney, and five- 
sixths of all our students are sons of Presbyterians. 
More than one-third of all the students who are at 
present, or who for some years have been at Union 
Theological Seminary, are alumni of Hampden-Sidney. 
From the foundation of the college it has been the nur- 
sery of gospel ministers, and I suppose that nearly 
one-third of all its graduates, besides a large number of 
its undergraduates, have become preachers of the gospel. 
Scores of our men are now living who are doing yeoman 
service in the cause of God and truth. If the names of 
the sons of Hampden-Sidney were stricken from the rolls 
of the Synod of Virginia and the Southern Presbyterian 
Church, an irreparable loss would be felt. What would 
the history of Presbyterianism in Virginia during the 
past and present generation be without such names as 
John Kirkpatrick, John L. Kirkpatrick, William S. 
White, Theodorick Pryor, Benjamin M. Smith, Robert 
L. Dabney, Moses D. Hoge, William U. Murkland, and 
scores of others, who have drunk from the fountains of 
learning and religion at our old college? What she has 
been to Virginia and the South may be illustrated by 
what she is to Richmond. Not only your own pastor, 
but the senior editor of our religious paper, the three 
successive pastors of the Fourth church, and the min- 
ister just called to the church in Manchester, are all 
Hampden-Sidney men. So in Baltimore, in Washington, 
in Raleigh and Wilmington, N. C, in Atlanta, in Selma, 
and at many other prominent points in every Southern 
Synod from Maryland to Texas, and from Missouri to 
Florida, and also in Greece, in Brazil, in China, in Japan, 
v/herever the work of our church extends, there Hamp- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 33 

den-Sidney men are preaching the gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and by their pure and consecrated Hves are 
pointing and leading men to God. Has she not been in 
the past, is she not now a power in sustaining the church 
of Christ ? May I not ask you to join me in the solemn 
asservation of the psalmist, "For my brethren and my 
companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. 
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will 
seek thy good." 

But it is not only for its direct services in training 
preachers that Hampden-Sidney deserves well of you. 
It has also done a noble work in educating pious lawyers 
physicians, merchants, who are leading officers and lay- 
men m some of the churches. They are found not only 
in Virgmia and the South, but in the far-off West and 
Northwest, and on the Pacific slope, and wherever they 
go they carry with them the principles, habits, and truths 
m which they have been educated. 

But perhaps next in appreciable value to the work 
which our college has done for the gospel ministry is 
the service rendered in the cause of Christian education 
It was from Hampden-Sidney that the venerable Samuel 
Doak, one of its first corps of teachers, and the founder 
of Presbyterianism in Tennessee, went forth to establish 
a college across the mountains. He carried on the backs of 
mules the first library which was ever on the west of the 
Alleghanies, before a wagon road had been cut across the 
mountains. From that day to this Hampden-Sidney has 
been among the foremost institutions in the land in fur- 
nishing Christian educators for our colleges and schools. 
The largest institution in the South is to-day presided ' 
over by a Hampden-Sidney graduate, the venerable 
Landon C. Garland, chancellor of Vanderbilt University 



A 



34 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

The present presiding officer at our own State University 
and another member of its faculty are Hampden-Sidney 
men, and another, the lamented and gifted Southall, 
lately fell at his post as professor of law. Two of our 
graduates have been presidents of Davidson College; 
one a professor of Washington College ; one of Washing- 
ton and Lee University ; one is now in Richmond Col- 
lege ; one in the University of Texas ; another is the 
noble chancellor of Central University, Kentucky ; an- 
other is the founder of the Southwestern Presbyterian 
University, and now Professor of Biblical Literature at 
that institution ; another is professor in your own Theo- 
logical Seminary ; five are professors in our own college, 
and there are many others in colleges and at the head of 
classical and high schools, male and female, throughout 
the country. These all, without exception, so far as is 
known to me, are serious and earnest Christian men, 
who, besides the service they render to sound learning, 
are exerting an influence and doing a work of unspeak- 
able value among the young for Christ, and in behalf of 
virtue and religion. I therefore recall your minds to the 
words of the psalmist, and urge you, "for the sake of the 
house of the Lord our God'' to "seek the good" of this 
venerable and useful college. 

Another point of interest in Hampden-Sidney for this 
congregation is, that it is the first, and, so far as is known 
to me, the only institution in Virginia which makes the 
history and literature of the Bible a part of its cur- 
riculum, and proficiency in this course a requisite for 
graduation. Our students are thus made acquainted 
with the facts of Scripture history, and somewhat with 
the Bible from Genesis through apostolic times ; and in 
the senior class a thorough course on the Evidences of 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 35 

Christianity is given, in which the students are instructed 
in the grounds on which our holy rehgion rests, and 
fortified against skeptical objections brought against it. 
Our young men are thus not left to be carried away with 
the wild vamperings of an Ingersoll, or the learned soph- 
istries of a Renan, a Strauss, or a Baur, or the scientific 
vagaries of a Darwin, a Spencer, or a Huxley, but are 
guarded and instructed as to the real foundations on 
which our religion is based. 

Had I not detained you so long already, I would now 
ask you to attend to some reminiscences of the men who 
have presided over this venerable institution. I can do 
little more than mention their names. And, of course, 
the founder of Hampden-Sidney Academy, Rev. Samuel 
Stanhope Smith, who became president of Princeton 
College, must be mentioned ; then John Blair Smith, the 
first president of the college, and one of its first Board of 
Trustees ; then Drury Lacy, the maternal grandfather 
of your pastor, who, as vice-president, filled the office for 
several years with distinguished success; then Archibald 
Alexander, who afterwards founded Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary, who gave the prime of his life to 
Virginia, and who, with his colleagues, John Holt Rice 
and Conrad Speece, made Hampden-Sidney a blessing to 
his native State ; then Moses Hoge, the elder, who came 
to the college in the maturity of his powers and filled the 
presidency with great ability, acting at the same time as 
Synod's Theological Professor, and who died in this 
position — a man of extraordinary scholarship, of vast 
powers as a preacher, of wonderful influence over all 
classes and conditions of people, under whom the college 
received the form of an institution of the highest grade 
then known in the State ; then Jonathan P. Cushing, and 



36 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Sparrow and Carroll and \\'illiam Alaxwcll, the accom- 
plished literateur, the eminent lawyer, the elegant gentle- 
man, and the devoted Christian ; then, coming to our own 
times, Lewis W. Green, the eloquent orator and inspiring 
teacher, whom all his old students, and I among the num- 
ber, remember with gratitude and admiration; and last, 
but not least, J. M. P. Atkinson, the devout man of God, 
heroic and whole-souled, who for twenty-five years, by 
valued instruction and holy example, educated the youth 
committed to his charge. The mention of the names of 
these men is an inspiration, and I summon them before 
you and ask, Will you let an institution for which they 
labored suffer, now that the age is threatening to leave 
it behind? "These all died in the faith, not having re- 
ceived the promise, but having seen it afar ofif," and in 
their names I call on you to come forward and aid in 
realizing the wish that was uppermost in their minds, 
that this old college should be thoroughly furnished to 
do the work assigned it by its historic position and the 
demands of the age. 

I once heard an eloquent minister utter the following 
words before a large audience: 'T believe," he said, 
"that if there is a spot on earth over which a window in 
heaven always stands open through which blessings con- 
tinually descend in sanctifying and saving power, that 
spot is Hampden-Sidney." God has greatly blessed the 
college, not only as an educational centre, but as a spirit- 
ual force. The minister who uttered those words was 
your pastor, my friend, Dr. Hoge, Avho, from his birth, 
has been identified with the college. He was' born there, 
was educated there, was for a time in his youth con- 
nected with the instruction of the institution ; has for 
thirtv-five vears been one of its most valued and honored 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 37 

trustees ; was twice elected its president, and would again 
have been the unanimous choice of the trustees but that 
it was known that he could not and would not leave his 
charge in Richmond, and he is regarded to-day by his 
aljiia mater as her chosen son, second to none other. I 
am here now by his invitation, and am sure that every 
word I have spoken finds response in his breast. I would 
suggest, with modesty, that Dr. Hoge's relation to the 
college being altogether unique, and wholly unlike that of 
any other living man, it would be appropriate that some 
memorial of him should be erected there in his honor. 
I know, indeed, that his grand memorial is found in this 
splendid edifice and in this' noble church of living souls 
which I now address. These are the results of his life- 
work, and shall endure throughout generations. But I 
know, also, that it would be a joy to his heart to have 
his name indissolubly connected with Hampden-Sidney, 
which has received so large a share of his affection, and 
to which he acknowledges himself to be under so great 
a debt of gratitude. I suggest, therefore, that, by the 
endowment of a professorial fund, or the erection of a 
building, or the creation of a library fund, this congrega- 
tion and Dr. Hoge's friends in Richmond shall signalize 
his services' and perpetuate his influence at Hampden- 
Sidney. I am sure there is no man on earth whom you 
so admire and honor and love, and that, whatever you 
deem right and wise in the premises, you will do. And 
may God add his blessing for Christ's sake. Amen. 

[Note.— To prevent misapprehension, the following remarks 
are deemed proper: (i) The foregoing discourse was prepared 
for a Presbyterian congregation. Had the audience been promis- 
cuous, more stress would have been laid on what has been done 
for other churches, especially the Episcopal, to which the services 



38' ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

of Hampden-Sidney have been somewhat marked. (2) Under 
other circumstances, too, fuller mention would have been made 
of what Hampden-Sidney has done in educating men who have 
filled the highest positions of responsibility in the country, from 
the presidency of the United States down through all grades of 
governTnental employment, state and federal, in all departments 
of administration, judicial, legislative, and executive. (3) The 
names of distinguished ministers and the high educational posi- 
tions held by graduates of Hampden-Sidney specifically mentioned 
are those which occurred to the writer in the rapidity of com- 
position. There are many others w^ho richly deserve notice, who 
were necessarily omitted. (4) Only three of the distinguished 
men named and alluded to in the body of the discourse hold a 
literary degree other than that conferred by Hampden-Sidney, 
and few ever enjoyed instruction in any other literary institution. 
Nearly all got their whole literary training at this college, and 
can adopt the language of one of the most distinguished of their 
number : "As I look back on life, I attribute whatever of use- 
fulness I have attained and whatever of influence I have exerted, 
to the training and inspiration I received at this place, while I 
was a student of the college."] 



HAMPDEN-SIDNEY COLLEGE AS AN EDUCA- 
TIONAL FORCE FROM THE WAR OF 
THE REVOLUTION TO THE WAR 
BETWEEN THE STATES. 

THIS institution is an outgrowth of Hampden-Sid- 
ney Academy, founded by Hanover Presbytery in 
1775 and opened for students January i, 1776. Its patrons 
designed it to be thoroughly Christian, but non-sectarian 
in its government, privileges and instruction. Hampden- 
Sidney College was incorporated by the General Assem- 
bly of \'irginia in 1783 under a broad and generous' 
charter, which has never been altered or amended, and 
stands next to William and Mary among institutions, 
south of Mason and Dixon's line, in the period of its 
collegiate existence. 

Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, afterwards President 
of Princeton College, was the first Rector of the Acad- 
emy, and Rev. John Blair Smith, afterwards President 
of Union College, N. Y., was' the first President of the 
College. They were brothers and both graduates of the 
college of New Jersey. 

In the list of charter members of the college are 
found the names of such well known Virginians as 
Patrick Henry, James Madison, William Cabell, Sr., Paul 
Carrington, Everard Meade, John Nash, John Morton, 
Thomas Reade, Joel Watkins, William Booker, Thomas 
Scott, Sr., James Allen, Nathaniel Venable, Peter John- 
ston and others of like degree, all of whom were among 
the founders of the Commonwealth and the defenders 



40' ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

of its liberties and wliose descendants now constitute an 
important portion of its inhabitants and of the people of 
many states of the American Union. 

The land on which the College is located, a tract of 
ninety-seven acres, was donated to its trustees by Peter 
Johnston, Esq., a patriotic Scotchman, a citizen of Prince 
Edward county and the father of Peter Johnston, Jr. 
(called little Peter), who entered the Academy in 1776 
and while a student, at the age of sixteen, ran away from 
school and became A. D. C. to Light Horse Harry Lee 
during the Revolutionary War and afterwards a distin- 
guished judge in Southwestern Virginia and the father 
of General Joseph E. Johnston and U. S. Senator J. M. 
Johnston. Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston was also grand- 
son of Peter Johnston, Sr., who is the progenitor of 
many scores of the leading citizens of \'irginia and other 
states. 

In estimating the educational value of an institution, 
however distinguished its services may have been in the 
production of technical educators, it would be a narrow 
view to confine the scope of inquiry to the area occupied 
by those who have directed their lives wholly to this end. 
Every educated man is an educational force, and what- 
ever may be his specialty, naturally and necessarily, dif- 
fuses influences of a culturing and elevating character. 
"What is that," says Coleridge, "which first strikes' us, 
and strikes us at once in a man of education? And vvliioh 
among educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man 
of superior mind, that (as was observed with eminent 
propriety, of the late Edmund Burke) we cannot stand 
under the same archway during a shower of rain, with- 
out finding him out. Not the weight or novelty of his 
remarks ; not anv unusual interest of facts communicated 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 41 

by liini. It is the unpremeditated and evidently habitual 
arrangement of his words, grounded on the habit of fore- 
seeing in each integral part, or (more plainly) in every 
sentence, the whole that he intends to communicate. 
However irregular and desultory his talk, there is method 
in the fragments."* 

On the other hand, every intelligent man, whether 
trustee or professor, or student, who is vitally connected 
with a literary institution, along with what he consciously 
seeks and attains, cannot fail to gain higher ideals, to 
imbibe something of culture and refinement and to obtain 
a nobler inspiration for life, from the environment in 
which he is placed. 

It would be an epoch-making revelation, if the edu- 
cative influences exerted on the original trustees of 
Hampden-Sidney College by their association with one 
another and their joint and individual efforts in its behalf 
could be fully depicted. How wide, important and far- 
reaching in its effects on their personal advancement, and 
on their families, their neighbors, the State of Virginia 
and the country at large was the communion with one 
another in the great work which brought them together, 
no mortal can reveal or even faintly trace. For example : 
the name of William Cabell, Sr., of Nelson county, is 
found among the corporators of the college, as it had been 
among the curators of the Academy from the first. He 
was a brother of Nicholas Cabell, Esq., of the same 
county. Several of the near relatives of these men are 
found among the early students of Hampden-Sidney ; 
notably William H. Cabell, afterwards Governor of the 
State and judge of its highest court for forty years, and 
Joseph C. Cabell, afterwards a graduate of William and 

* The Friend. Section 2, Ess. 4. 



42 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Mary College and in later life a distinguished and influ- 
ential member of the Senate of Virginia and the inde- 
fatigable and successful co-laborer of Thomas Jefferson 
in securing the founding of our great university and 
without whose persistent and intelligent efforts, it is 
l)robable that all Mr. Jefferson's endeavors would have 
been futile and gone for nought, f It cannot, indeed, be 
categorically asserted, but it may be rationally surmised 
that the influence of Hampdcn-Sidney on the elder Cabell 
and of Hampden-Sidney and William and Mary on the 
younger generation had something to do in smoothing 
the path for the establishment of our highest educational 
institution. Just as a spark of vital religion in the heart 
and life of a man is intended to be a light to the world 
and as it is like to leaven which is meant to diffuse itself 
throughout the whole social fabric, so education in its 
higher, nobler aspects must make itself felt, and where- 
soever and in whomsoever found, show itself a potent 
factor in the upbuilding of institutions and the enlighten- 
ment of mankind. 

If this be true, then what a mighty force must have 
been exerted by such institutions as Hampden-Sidney 
College during the period beginning with the Revolution- 
ary War and ending with the war between the States. 
What an impression for good must have been produced 
throughout the State and far beyond by the lives' and 
example of hundreds of educated lawyers, publicists, 
physicians, ministers of the gospel and others, who sat 
at the feet of the venerable men, who taught at this 
institution during those auspicious days, and who in 
association with one another in the class-room, in the 

t Thos. Jefferson and the University of Va., by Herbert B. 
Adams, p. 54. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 43 

literary societies and on the campus', found inspiration 
for effort and for the high and noble career to which 
many of them attained. 

It would be both wearisome and vain to encumber 
these pages with even a partial list of the names and 
deeds of the men who studied and got their inspiration, 
during this period at Hampden-Sidney and afterward 
honored their alma mater and themselves by serving their 
generation wisely and well in positions' of high trust 
and responsibility. Such an effort would require more 
than a folio volume for its completion instead of a brief 
article of a few pages, but it may be well in entering on 
the special topic of this paper and as integral part of it, 
to tell of a few of the sons of the old College whose 
illustrious deeds may serve as examples of many men, 
equally or scared}^ less distinguished and all of whom 
must have exerted an important influence, direct and in- 
direct, on the educational welfare of our beloved Com- 
monwealth and scarcely less beloved Southland. 

Lawyers and Publicists. 

It is an interesting fact that in the list of the first 
class which graduated from the College (1786) two 
names, John W. Epps and Kemp Plummcr, occur which 
are treasured as sweet memories by multitudes of rela- 
tives and admirers ; both native Virginians', but the 
reputation of the one connected with his native state and 
the national government, and of the other with the State 
of North Carolina. 

Hon. John W. Epps was a native of Prince George 
county; lived in Chesterfield county and later in Buck- 
ingham. He was a planter and a man of large means, a 
bold, aggressive speaker and had great influence among 



44 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

his fellow citizens. He was nephew and son-in-law of 
Thomas Jefferson, having married his cousin, "Polly." 
"His manners were frank and engaging, he was highly 
educated and particularly pleasing in conversation, while 
his character was in every way worthy of the high 
opinion that Jefferson frequently expressed concerning 
him." * He was a member of the National House of 
Representatives for many years and was chairman of 
the Committee on Ways and Means. Later he was a 
member of the U. S. Senate and resigned after 1819 on 
account of ill health. He is said to have been "the only 
man who beat John Randolph before the people for 
Congress." 

Hon. Kemp Plummer was a native of Gloucester 
county, and after graduation at Hampden-Sidncy, studied 
law under Chancellor Wythe. About 1790 he removed, 
with his widowed mother and family, to North .Carolina 
and opened a law office at Warrenton, where he soon 
became a successful practitioner. "His manners were 
uncommonly agreeable, his speeches exceedingly interest- 
ing, clear and pointed, and his reputation for strict in- 
tegrity gave him great weight with judge and jury. He 
was soon at the top of the local bar with a remunerative 
income, practicing, besides at home, in the counties of 
Halifax, Nash and Franklin." In 1794, he was elected 
to the Lower House of the Legislature^ and in 181 5 and 
1816, was a member of the State Senate, and in both 
positions rendered important service. He was once 
offered the high office of Governor, but on the advice of 
his wife (a prudent woman) declined it because of the 
expense of living at the capital. When he died, the 
village newspaper, "Tlic Warrenton Republican," said of 



* The True Thomas Jefferson, p. 45. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 45 

him: "He was the glory of our Httle world, the pride 
of the village, the ornament of the county, an honor to 
the Bar, a friend of the poor, the bold advocate of the 
country." This is high praise, and well deserved, but 
the most prized tribute among his descendants is the 
name which, by a long course of honorable dealing he 
earned, "The Honest Lawyer."* 

The career of these two honorable gentlemen, the first 
begotten of their alma mater, fitly, though in some re- 
spects inadequately, represent many scores of her sons 
who, as lawyers and publicists, have performed eminent 
services to their country and exerted a masterful and 
exalting influence over the generations to which they 
belonged. Consider then, the beneficent effects of the 
lives of such men (sons of Hampden-Sidney) as the fol- 
lowing, and scores of others: William B. Giles, of 
Amelia, lawyer, orator, member of Congress and of the 
U. S. Senate, Governor of Virginia and member of the 
Constitutional Convention of Virginia of i829-'3o; Wil- 
liam Henry Harrison of Charles City county, a student 
of Hampden-Sidney in 1789 and one of the founders of 
the Union Literary Society, officer in U. S. Army from 
ensign to general, Secretary of the North Western Terri- 
tory, U. S. Minister to Columbia, member of Congress 
and U. S. Senate, President of the United States, but his 
usefulness cut short by his untimely death ; George M. 
Bibb, of Prince Edward, a graduate in the class of 1791, 
studied law, emigrated to Kentucky soon after it was 
admitted into the Union, filled its highest offices including 
those of Chief Justice and Governor, served in the 
United States House of Representatives for several 
terms and in the U. S. Senate, where he distinguished 

* Dr. Kemp PlniTuiier Battle, in The Kaleidoscope of 1900. 



46 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

himself greatly by a speech on "States Rights" in reply 
to Daniel Webster, and occupied the position of Secre- 
tary of the Treasury under President Tyler's administra- 
tion ; William S. Archer, of Amelia, member of Congress 
from 1819-1835 and afterwards of the U. S. Senate; 
William C. Rives, of Albemarle, member of Congress 
and of U. S. Senate, twice U. S. Minister to the court 
of France, a writer and speaker of wonderful beauty and 
power, "Statesman, Diplomatist, Historian, the most 
eminent citizen of Virginia!" (Alexander Brown) ; Pow- 
hatan Ellis, of Amherst county, a distinguished lawyer in 
Mississippi, member of Congress and U. S. Senate from 
that state and U. S. Minister to Mexico ; William H. Mc- 
Farland, of Lunenburg, afterwards the cultured lawyer 
of the city of Richmond and for many years president 
of the Farmers' Bank of Virginia; Richard K. Cralle, 
of Lunenburg, the distinguished biographer of John C. 
Calhoun ; Andrew LIunter, of Jefferson county, one of 
the ablest lawyers of his day, the prosecutor of John 
Brown, and member of the Confederate States Congress ; 
LIugh A. Garland, of Nelson, professor of ancient lan- 
guages in Hampden-Sidney College, member and clerk 
of the U. S. House of Representatives, and biographer 
of John Randolph; David May, of Chesterfield, one of 
the leading lawyers of Petersburg for more than forty 
years, whose irreproachable character and cheerful piety 
were an inspiration to all who knew him ; William Bal- 
lard Preston, of Montgomery, member of the Virginia 
Senate, of the House of Representatives, Secretary of 
the Navy, and member of the Virginia Convention of 
1861 ; William M. Tredway, of Prince Edward, Circuit 
Judge and member of U. S. Congress'; Alexander Rives, 
of Albemarle, member of Senate of Virginia and Judge 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 47 

of U. S. District Court ; William Daniel, of Cumberland, 
eminent lawyer and law writer and Judge of the Court 
of Appeals of Virginia ; John B. Floyd, of Montgomery, 
member of House of Representatives, Secretary of War, 
Governor of Virginia, General C. S. A. ; Thomas W. 
Ligon, of Prince Edward, lawyer, member of U. S. 
House of Representatives and Governor of Maryland; 
Thomas Stanhope Flournoy, of Prince Edward, lawyer 
and member of Congress ; Charles S. Mosby, of Pow- 
hatan, the leading lawyer at the Lynchburg bar for many 
years, "The Addison of the Virginia Bar;" Sterling 
Price, of Prince Edward, farmer in Charlton county, 
Mo., member of Missouri Legislature and U. S. House 
of Representatives, Brigadier General in Mexican War, 
Governor of Missouri, President of State Convention of 
1861, Major-General C. S. A.; John W. Stevenson, Lou- 
doun county, member of Legislature of Kentucky, leader 
in Constitutional Convention of 1849, member of House 
of Representatives and U. S. Senate and Governor of 
Kentucky; Thomas S. Bocock, of Buckingham, lawyer 
and member of Virginia House of Delegates, of United 
State Congress i846-'6i, Speaker of Confederate 
States House of Representatives ; Stephen O. South- 
all, of Amelia, member of House of Delegates, learned 
lawyer and Professor of Law at the University 
of Virginia from 1866 to 1883 at his death; William 
Cabell Carrington, of Charlotte, lawyer in city of Rich- 
mond and editor of "The Times," elected to the Legis- 
lature but died before taking his seat ; A. M. Branch, of 
Buckingham, lawyer in Texas, member of Senate of that 
State, member C. S. Congress and elected to U. S. 
Senate in 1868; John T. Thornton, of Cumberland, 
eminent lawyer and man of splendid forensic power, 



4S ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

member of Virginia Convention of 1861, Colonel of 
Cavalry and killed at the head of his regiment ; Roger 
A. Pryor, of NottOM^ay, lawyer, editor, member of Con- 
gress, Minister to Greece, General C. S. A., judge of 
highest court of the State of New York; P. W. Mc- 
Kinney, of Buckingham, lawyer, member of House of 
Delegates of Virginia, Captain C. S. A., Governor of 
Virginia; B. J. Epps, of Nottoway, lawyer. Judge of 
Dinwiddie county, member of the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of Virginia of i90i-'o2; R. M. Venable, of Prince 
Edward, lawyer, for more than thirty years professor in 
the law school of the University of Maryland, Trustee in 
Johns Hojjkins University. 

Physicians. 

The services of Ilampden-Sidney to the medical pro- 
fession and through it to society at large has been 
scarcely less distinguished and influential than in behalf 
of the legal brotherhood and statesmanship. Probably 
as many physicians as lawyers have been turned out from 
the college but as' their position in life is not so much 
before the public eye, they are less known. It happens 
that in the first graduating class (1786) we find the 
name of George Cabell, Sr., an older brother of Judge 
W. H. Cabell, whose professional life was spent in the 
city of Lynchburg, and received the highest encomiums. 
In the class of 1789, we find James Jones, of Nottoway, 
who received a thorough medical training in European 
schools and whose distinction as a physician and pub- 
licist is one of the traditions of his county. In the class 
of 1801, we find the name of William S. Morton, son of 
Maj. James Morton, of Prince Edward, who, for un- 
flinching courage during the Revolutionary War, received 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 49 

the soubriquet of "Solid Column," which he carried 
throughout life. One who knew Dr. Morton well says, 
"He was a great man, physically, mentally, and morally.'' 
In the class of 1804, occurs the name of Addison Wad- 
dell, son of Rev. James Waddell, "The Blind Preacher," 
who for nearly fifty years practiced medicine in Staun- 
ton, "a learned and wise physician and a deeply read 
metaphysician and theologian." Next comes J. P. I^Iet- 
tauer in the class of 1807, born in Prince Edward and 
spent his whole life in his native county, one of the 
founders of the Philanthropic Literary Society, surgeon 
in the U. S. Army during the War of 1812, founder of a 
medical school at his home from which went out scores of 
men well prepared for the professional career, the 
mventor of many valuable surgical instruments and ap- 
pliances and a distinguished writer and practitioner. 
Passing over more than a score of men whose beneficent 
lives and services deserve mention, we come in 1828 to 
the name of Edward C. Fisher, of Augusta county, who 
for a long series of years was superintendent of the 
Asylum for the Insane at Raleigh, N. C, and a specialist 
of high repute. In 1831 we come to the name of Robert 
Southgate, of Norfolk, for many years a surgeon in the 
U. S. Army and held the same position in the C. S. A. 
Again skipping several scores' of men whose lives were 
a benediction to the communities in which they lived, we 
find the name of William D. Booker, of Prince Edward, 
(i860- '61) who has practiced his profession in the city 
of Baltimore for thirty years and whose eminence has 
been recognized by the trustees of Johns Hopkins Uni- 
versity in his elevation to a professorship in the medical 
school of that institution. 



50 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Ministers of the Gospel. 

Were it not for restriction in space, it would not be 
difficult to give the names of some hundreds of ministers 
of the gospel, good and useful men, who received their 
preparation and inspiration at Hampden-Sidney College 
and who have done much in promoting education in 
Virginia and the South. There are few more potent 
educational forces to be found in any community than 
the lives and work of preachers of the Gospel. They 
are of inestimable value, too little prized by the thought- 
less but duly recognized and appreciated by intelligent 
people everywhere. 

In the first class' sent out from the College, there are 
found two men who became ministers of the gospel, 
Theoderick ISIcRoberts and Nash Legrand, and in most 
of the classes since, one or more of the graduates have 
devoted their lives to the ministry, and in some cases 
eight or ten arc found in the same class. Furthermore, 
during the period under consideration, it was not un- 
common for young men looking forward to the ministry, 
specially those who entered late in life, not to attcmjit 
a graduating course, but to content themselves with such 
elective studies as are necessary as the foundation of 
theological training and it is believed that the number of 
such will approximate the number of those who received 
their diplomas'. Happily this state of things no longer 
exists to the same extent at Ilampdcn-Sidney or else- 
where. 

Little can be learned of Theoderick McRoberts be- 
yond the fact that he became a useful minister, but of 
Nash Legrand, Rev. Dr. W. H. Foote in his "Sketches 
of Virginia" gives an interesting account, in which it is 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 51 

stated that two or three years of his earher ministry 
were spent in evangehstic work in Virginia and North 
Carohna and that fifteen years of his hfe were given to 
fruitful and exhausting labors in Cedar Creek and 
Opequon Churches in Frederick county. Among the 
closing sentences of "the Sketch" occurs the following- 
"Thus lived and thus died one of the best and most suc- 
cessful^ ministers of the gospel Virginia has ever pro- 
duced." "No other preacher in the state held his people 
more closely to the gospel standard or extended his influ- 
ence farther or left behind a sweeter remembrance." 

Passing over the interval between 1786 to 1825 
mentioning only the names of a few men of special 
prominence and connected, directly or indirectly with 
education, such as Clement Read, of Charlotte; William 
Hill, of Cumberland, afterwards of Winchester; Samuel 
Davies Hoge, professor in Hampden-Sidney College 
pastor of churches in Virginia and Ohio, and Professor 
of Mathematics and Physical Science in the University 
of Ohio; Jesse Turner, of Bedford; John Kirkpatrick, 
of Mecklenburg county, N. C, afterwards the eloquent 
orator and consecrated minister of Cumberland county 
Va.; Drury Lacy, of Prince Edward, afterwards of 
North Carolina, and President of Davidson College- 
Wm. S. White, of Hanover, afterwards of Nottoway' 
Charlottesville, and Lexington and closely identified with 
the University of Virginia and Washington College and 
Washington and Lee University; we come to the name of 
Ihomas Atkinson, a native of Dinwiddie county after- 
wards a student of law at Yale College and a praciitioner 
for seven years, later studied for the ministry in the 
Episcopal Church, subsequently rector in the cities of 
Lynchburg, Norfolk, and Baltimore and Bishop of the 



52 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Diocese of North Carolina from 1853 to 1881. The 
writer of this sketch remembers him as a gentleman of 
chaste and extensive culture, of courtly bearing, of fine 
common sense, of unaffected piety, whose influence for 
good was widespread and pervading. 

Among the graduates in the next class was Theo- 
derick Pryor, of Dinwiddie, who afterwards graduated 
in law at the University of Virginia and practiced a short 
while, after which he pursued a course at Union Theo- 
logical Seminary and became the pastor of the Presby- 
terian Church in Nottoway county, where most of his 
ministerial life was spent and where he was identified 
with every important interest of the people, a man of 
the highest and purest character, a preacher of imprcs- 
sivencss and force and surpassed by few in effective 
power of presenting important truth, a diligent and be- 
loved pastor and friend. P^ew men ever had more or 
warmer admirers or did more during about sixty years 
of active service in the advancement of truth and right. 

The class of 1829 was remarkable in that of nine 
members, six became ministers of the gospel and one 
(Landon C. Garland) a distinguished educator. Of the 
ministers, two were Episcopalians and four Presbyte- 
rians, one of each set, besides a long and fruitful min- 
istry, did much for the promotion of education. The 
first of these is Geo. W. Dame, a native of Manchester, 
N. H., and nephew of Jonathan P. Cushing, at that time 
President of Hampden-Sidney College. After his grad- 
uation Dr. Dame was Professor of Physical Science in 
the College. He then studied privately for the ministry 
and was rector of the Episcopal Church in Danville for 
more than a half century, during most of which time he 
was at the head of an academy for young ladies, from 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 53 

whicli many of the best women of Virginia were turned 
out. The other was Benjamin M. Smith, of Powhatan, 
afterwards pastor of the churches of Danville, Tinkling 
Springs and Staunton, and for nearly forty years Pro- 
fessor of Oriental Languages in Union Theological 
Seminary. Dr. Smith was author of a commentary on 
the Psalms and Proverbs and was' a luminous and exten- 
sive writer on other subjects; a genial gentleman, an 
indefatigable worker, for many years trustee in Wash- 
ington College and Washington and Lee University, and 
did more to promote the solid prosperity and usefulness 
of Union Theological Seminary than any man who has 
yet lived, except Dr. John Holt Rice, its eminent founder 
and first professor. 

In the class of 1832 appears the name of John L. 
Kirkpatrick, of Mecklenburg county, N. C, pastor in 
Lynchburg, Va., Gainesville, Ala., and Charleston, S. C, 
President of Davidson College from i86o-'66 and Pro- 
fessor of Moral Philosophy in Washington and Lee Uni- 
versity from 1866 till his death. 

In the class of 1835, we find the name of J. M. P. 
Atkinson, of Dinwiddle county, brother of Bishop 
Thomas' Atkinson, a Presbyterian minister, in early life 
a missionary in Texas, afterwards pastor at Warrenton, 
Va., and Georgetown, D. C, and for twenty-six years 
President of Hampden-Sidney College. He was a man 
whose character was clear as crystal, of undaunted cour- 
age, firm in his convictions and courteous in their expres- 
sion. As captain of the "Hampden-Sidney Boys" he 
took part in the fight at Rich Mountain in 1865 and after 
the capture of Pegram's command returned to college, 
brought it safely through the war and reconstruction 



54 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

times down to 1883, when he died, honored and beloved 
by all who knew him. 

Passing by a number o£ distinguished and useful men, 
we come in 1839 to the name of Moses Drury Hoge, born 
at Hampden-Sidney in 1818, while his father was pro- 
fessor and his grandfather was President of the College, 
the pastor for fifty-five years of the Second Presbyterian 
Church, Richmond, of which he was the founder, con- 
ducting a school for young ladies (about 1850) several 
years that he might give his salary to the church building 
which now stands as a monument to his unselfish devo- 
tion; the humble man of God, the true patriot, the 
eloquent preacher, for more than forty-five years the 
trustee and untiring friend of his alma mater, ever ready 
to help in every good cause, for years before his death 
the foremost citizen of the commonwealth, and who on 
the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his pastorate 
received tributes of honor, esteem and affection from all 
classes of citizens, including Jews, Catholics, and un- 
believers, such as perhaps were never before accorded 
to any man in Virginia. 

And so the list of such ministers might be extended 
indefinitely in telling of John B. Shearer, of Campbell 
county, who, while minister in Halifax, founded Cluster 
Springs Academy, was afterwards the reviver and Presi- 
dent of Stewart College, Tenn., out of which, chiefly by 
his exertions, the South Western Presbyterian University 
grew, and who next was President of Davidson College, 
N. C. ; Thomas Wharey, of Prince Edward, who on ac- 
count of his fervid and persuasive eloquence was called 
"the Spurgeon of Virginia" ; of Peter Tinsley, for thirty 
years rector of the Episcopal church at Walnut Hills, 
Cincinnati, Ohio ; of Lindsay H. Blanton, of Cumberland 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 55 

county, for many years a useful and beloved pastor in 
Kentucky and the reviver and chancellor of Central Uni- 
versity at Richmond, Ky., and its co-ordinated schools; 
of William U. Murkland, of Baltimore, for twenty-five 
years among the leading divines and pulpit orators of 
that city; of Robert A. Gibson, of Petersburg, rector in 
Parkersburg, W. Va., and Cincinnati, Ohio, and Bishop 
of the Diocese of Northern Virginia ; of Edward H. 
Barnett, of Christiansburg, pastor in Abingdon, Va., and 
Atlanta, Ga., and many more. 

Educators. 

The names of many of those included under the pre- 
ceding head might properly be brought under this sec- 
tion. All, indeed, there given have had much to do witli 
the advancement of education by active and direct effort. 
Those that are to come were largely or exclusively en- 
gaged in this department of work as' the business of their 
lives. 

As far back as 1788, in the third class graduated from 
the College, the name of James Blythe, of Mecklenburg 
county N. C, is found. He afterwards studied medicine 
and theology and adopting the ministry as his profession, 
found his field of labor in Kentucky, Ranke in his His- 
tory of Lexington, (Ky.) says': "The first president of 
Transylvania University, Rev. James Moore, was suc- 
ceeded by Rev. James Blythe, M. D., who was born in 
North Carolina in 1765 and was educated for the Pres- 
byterian ministry. He came to Kentucky in 1791 and 
two years after was ordained pastor of Pisgah and Clear 
Creek churches. He continued to preach up to the time 
of his death. For six years before his' accession to the 
Presidency of the University, he was professor of math- 



56 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

ematics and natural philosophy and often supplied the 
pulpit of the First Preshytcrian church. He was presi- 
dent for nearly fifteen years and after his resignation 
filled the chair of chemistry in the medical college until 
1 83 1, when he accepted the Presidency of Hanover Col- 
lege, Ind., which prospered greatly under his charge."* 

In the class of 1791 looms up the name of Moses 
Waddell, of Iredell county, N. C, who was afterwards 
closely connected with the States of South Carolina and 
Georgia in the capacity of preacher, teacher, and presi- 
dent of Franklin College, out of which the University 
of Georgia grew. So rapid and solid was his progress' as 
a boy at school that at the age of fourteen years his ser- 
vices as a teacher were sought, which profession he 
followed for six or seven years until he entered 
Hampden-Sidney as a student. After his ordination to 
the ministry, he gave his life chiefly to teaching, and 
founded the famous Academy at Willington, S. C, at 
which such men of national reputation as John C. Cal- 
houn, Legare, McDuffie, and Petigru of South Carolina, 
and Cobb, Longstreet, Crawford, Gilmer, and Appling of 
Georgia, received their youthful training. He was after- 
wards elected to the Presidency of the University of 
Georgia. "Of this institution, while not the founder, 
he was the reviver and first successful administrator. 
Franklin College, as it was also styled, opened its doors 
to its first students as late as 1804, and after fifteen years 
of what seems to have been sheer struggle for existence, 
there was a virtual suspension of its' existence until Dr. 
Waddell was invited, in its darkest hour, to undertake its 
restoration and improvement. The invitation, to his 

*The Kaleidoscope, 1900, p. 32. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 57 

earnest religious nature, came like a summons to a heaven 
appointed duty, and in this temper, he began and prose- 
cuted the work, so that in ten years he had started the 
institution upon a career of usefulness and honor.* The 
Hon. John C. Calhoun, who was both his' pupil and 
brother-in-law, says of him : "He discharged punctually 
and faithfully the various duties attached to all his pri- 
vate relations. He was sociable and amiable, but not 
without a due mixture of sternness and firmness. As a 
minister of the gospel, he was pious, zealous, and well 
versed in theology generally. His style of preaching was 
plain, simple, earnest. He addressed himself much more 
to the understanding than to the imagination or passions'. 
As a teacher he stands almost unrivaled. "f 

In the year 18 13, we come across the name of Ed- 
ward Baptist, a native of Mecklenburg county, the son 
of a Presbyterian mother and an Episcopal father, not 
only a collegiate graduate but a student of theology at 
Hampden-Sidney under Dr. ]\Ioses Hoge, and a devout 
admirer and friend of his ahna mater and his venerated 
perceptor, afterwards became a Baptist minister and 
settled in Powhatan county. It is said that early in his 
ministerial life he founded a school in the bounds of his 
congregation which grew into a Baptist College, and was 
afterwards removed to Richmond and became the foun- 
dation on which Richmond College is built. Certain it is 
that he "held influence among the Baptists second to 
none in his day ;" that he was "a. prime mover in the 
organization of the Virginia Baptist Association in 1822 
and drafted its constitution ;" that "he was also origina- 

* The Kaleidoscope, 1902, p. 17. 
t Presbyterian Encyclopedia. 



58 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

lor of the Baptist Educational Society and the Baptist 
Seminary, and by appointment instructed a number of 
young men who were students for the ministry."^ "He 
seems thus to have been one among the originators or 
suggestors of Richmond College ; in a sense the fore- . 
runner or beginner of the work done by it, though he 
never had any connection with the college as such. In 
1838 he moved to Alabama, where he did most valuable 
work and lived and labored till i863.§ 

Among the graduates of 1823 we find the name of 
Robert Burwell, of Dinwiddle county, who, with Jesse 
S. Armistead, of Cumberland county, and Thomas P. 
Hunt, of Charlotte county — all graduates of Hampden- 
Sidney College — constituted the first class in Union Theo- 
logical Seminary, an institution which grew out of 
Hampden-Sidney College by natural evolution, and which 
for the first two or three years of its existence was main- 
tained on the college premises and largely through the 
self-denial and assistance of its professors. Mr. Burwx>ll 
was a laborious minister of the gospel and lived to the 
great age of ninety-three years. From the date of his 
licensure to 1884 he was untiring in his Christian and 
ministerial eflForts, giving about fifty of the later yeans 
of his life to the work of teaching young ladies, first at 
Hillsboro, N. C. ; then as principal of the Female College, 
Charlotte, N. C, and last as principal of Peace Institute, 
Raleigh, N. C. During this time he had more than 
twelve hundred pupils under his care. The influence of 
his example and instruction on the women of the South 
and through them on society at large has been immense 
and always good. 

t Baptist Encyclopedia. 

§ Prof. C. H. Winston, Richmond College, Va. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 59 

In George E. Dabney, of Campbell county (class 
1826) we have the example of a man who devoted his 
whole life to education as its chief end, first as principal 
of New London Academy; then as Professor of Ancient 
Languages at Washington College, and afterwards, from 
i85i-'6i, when the college was closed at the beginning 
of the war, Professor of Latin and French in Richmond 
College. At the close of the war he was authorized to 
take charge of the college premises along with President 
Ryland and open a private school. He died in 1868. 
Rev. Dr. C. H. Ryland, treasurer of Richmond College, 
who was his pupil, speaks of him "as' a man of high 
learning and fine Christian character, reserved and quiet, 
but of recognized ability." 

In the class of 1829 comes Landon Cabell Garland, 
of Nelson county, one of the most distinguished educa- 
tors that the South has produced, taking a professorial 
chair at Washington College immediately on graduation, 
afterwards professor and President of Randolph-Macon 
College, then President and Professor of the University 
of Alabama, afterwards Professor in the LInivcrsity of 
Mississippi, and his honored life was crowned as Chan- 
cellor of Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tenn., 
where he died in 1895. "If Virginia ever gave birth to a 
man who did more real service to the manhood of the 
South, his name and place would be hard to find."''' 

Although Robert L. Dabney, of Hanover county, was 
not a graduate of Hampden-Sidney, he was its student 
for two years in the Sophomore and Junior classes, after 
which he taught a year or two and then entered the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, where he took the degree of M. A. 

* Irby's History of Randolph-Macon College, p. 43. 



6o ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

He always recognized his indebtedness to Hampden- 
Sidney and was its steadfast and active friend throughout 
life. In the early days of his ministry at Tinkling Spring 
church, Augusta county, he taught a school for boys, 
from which some men afterwards distinguished in life 
were turned out. From 1853 to 1883, he was successively 
professor of Church History and Theology in Union 
Theological Seminary, a man of extensive and accurate 
learning, a robust thinker and writer on a great variety 
of subjects, a born teacher, trained and developed under 
McGuffey at the University of Virginia and adopting the 
best features of his method and also of that of John B. 
Minor, diverse from each other but both admirable of 
their kind, and when brought together by Dabney, attain- 
ing as great perfection as can ])erhaps be reached in the 
art of communicating knowledge, awakening thought and 
stimulating to effort. In 1883 Dr. Dabney accepted the 
position of Professor of Moral Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Texas, which lie filled until within a year or 
two of his death, when he resigned on account of im- 
paired vision. He was a man of masterly ability and 
exerted a great influence in his day. 

In the class of 1842 we find the name of Charles S. 
Venable of Prince Edward, which is closely identified 
with the educational history of Virginia and to some ex- 
tent with that of two other states and which wnW be borne 
in honored remembrance by his old boys for many years 
to come. After graduation he spent a year in post- 
graduate study at his ahna uiafcr, also studied at the 
University of A'irginia and subsequently at Berlin and 
Bonn, Germany. He w^as Professor of Mathematics at 
Hampden-Sidney for ten years, of Physics and Chemistry 
in the University of Georgia, of Mathematics and As- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 6i 

tronomy in South Carolina College. In 1861 he was 
Captain of the Engineer Corps in New Orleans and 
Vicksburg and from 1862- 1865 was A. D. C. to General 
Robert E. Lee. From 1865-1891 he was Professor of 
Mathematics in the University of Virginia, during sev- 
eral years of which he was chairman of its Faculty and 
rendered important service in enlarging the resources 
and appliances of the institution. He was also trustee 
for the Miller Manual Labor School in Albemarle county, 
and as such, was of incalculable value in developing it 
into the splendid sphere of usefulness it now fills. Indeed, 
he discharged the duties of every position he occupied 
with the highest credit to himself and thorough satis- 
faction to everyone connected with him. His work, both 
at Hampden-Sidncy and the University of Virginia, was 
remarkable not only in the classroom but in his inter- 
course with and influence over the students. In the 
words of the late Professor L. L. Holladay, who was 
both his pupil and colleague, "Venable excelled both as 
an instructor and in his knowledge and control of stu- 
dents." Wherever the writer meets his old boys, they 
speak of him with admiration and afifection. "To have 
lived and worked with a man so true in word and deed, 
so pure in act and lofty in motive, so generous and so 
brave, is one of heaven's best gifts. May his influence 
be everlasting; his memory kept green forever."* 

We now skip to the class of 185 1, where along with 
other names richly deserving of mention, we find that of 
Robert Dabney, of Powhatan county, who possessed one 
of the brightest intellects and best stowed minds in the 
college, a beautiful speaker and strong debater, ranking 

* Prof. W. M. Thornton in the Kaleidoscope of 1901. 



62 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

with P. W. McKinney in forensic power and his chief 
opponent for the speaker's medal in the Philanthropic 
Society. After graduation, he studied at the University 
of Virginia, was' a member of the House of Delegates 
t86i-'62, served in the 4th Regiment of Va. Cavalry. 
After the war he was elected Professor of Moral Phil- 
osophy in the University of the South at Sewanee, which 
position he filled until his death in 1876. His old stu- 
dents showed their appreciation of his instruction and 
example by the erection of a monument to his memory. 
In the class of 1852, we select the name of Joseph 
IMcMurran, of Jefferson county, nearly the whole of 
whose life was devoted to the instruction of the young. 
In Green Academy, Huntsville, Ala., at Chatham, Va., 
as principal of the Montgomery Male Academy of Chris- 
tiansburg, Va., he made himself felt. One of his pupils 
at the last named school, Dr. Robert W. Douthat, Pro- 
fessor of Latin in the University of West Virginia, pays 
the following tribute to his memory: "I w^as for three 
years during the formative period of my life under the 
very excellent instruction of Dr. Joseph McMurran, than 
whom I never had a better teacher, more patient, more 
polished, more impressive, more inspiring. Dr. McMur- 
ran always had a large school in Christiansburg and was 
very generally looked upon as another 'Arnold of Rugby,' 
the very embodiment of patience and love, who under 
the great Taskmaster's eye lived to serve humanity and 
in doing this', to glorify God."* He served faithfully 
and courageously during the war between the States, 
after which his chief work was the upbuilding of Shep- 
herd College, Shepherdstown, W. Va., at the head of 

* Kaleidoscope, 1902, p. 21 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 63 

which he was for ten years. "Besides the sixty-five 
teachers which he turned out in these ten years, others 
of his pupils have entered all the departments of life, as' 
ministers, lawyers, legislators, physicians, merchants, 
farmers, queens of the home."t Dr. McMurran was 
President of the County Board of Education and for 
five years a member of the West Virginia State Board 
of Examiners and of Teachers' Institutes. 

In the class of 1853, there are two names that deserve 
to be kept fresh and green in the annals of Hampden- 
Sidney and in the history of education in Virginia, repre- 
senting two men very unlike in physical appearance and 
in some personal characteristics, but both possessing fine 
ability, genial disposition, excellent scholarship, thorough 
conscientiousness and unsullied piety ; bosom friends at 
college and throughout life, and not far separated in 
death, the one, Charles W. Crawley, of Charlotte, a Meth- 
odist ; the other, Lewis" L. Holladay, of Spottsylvania, a 
Presbyterian; the first spending the whole of his life, 
with the exception of two years as tutor in Randolph- 
Macon College, in the instruction of private and public 
schools ; the second, with the exception of one year in 
post-graduate study at the University of Virginia, prom- 
inently connected with his alma mater as professor of 
Phyisical Science from the beginning to the end of his 
career, than whom no one ever enjoyed more of the 
respect, confidence and affection of his colleagues and 
pupils. Crawley filled his place as well as any man 
could, and was blessed by those who knew him. Holla- 
day, in a more exalted position, and exerting a wider 
and more potent influence on a larger circle of educated 

t Kaleidoscope, 1902, p. 22. 



64 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

men, accomplished his hfe work as effectively and use- 
fully — I had almost said, completely — and his name and 
influence are a benediction to multitudes. Both did much 
to advance the progress and history of education in Vir- 
ginia and the South through the men who came under 
their instruction and guidance. 

There still remain the names of three ante-bellum 
students of Hampden-Sidney whose influence in educa- 
tion has been so potent that their record must be given 
briefly : the first of whom is Joseph W. Southall, of 
Amelia, who subsequently attended William and Mary 
College, became a practitioner of medicine and a member 
of the Senate of Virginia, and is now serving his third 
term as State Superintendent of Public Instruction, in 
which position his intelligent and indefatigable labors 
have been of much value in enlarging and improving the 
public schools of the State and in stimulating to higher 
ideals of education. The second is Charles H. Winston, 
of Chesterfield (class of 1854), Assistant Professor in 
Ancient Languages at Hampden-Sidney, Professor of 
Ancient Languages in Transylvania University, Ky., 
President of Richmond Female Institute, Professor of 
Physics and Astronomy in Richmond College since 1873, 
a constant worker in summer normal schools in Virginia 
and North Carolina, a popular lecturer on religious and 
scientific subjects, a cultured gentleman, a man of the 
purest Christian character, whose influence for good is 
widespread and effective. The third is Walter Blair, 
of Richmond, (class 1855), who, immediately after grad- 
uation, was made Assistant Professor of Ancient Lan- 
guages at Hampden-Sidney, and after two years Profes- 
sor of Latin and German; subsequently spent three years 
in German Universities, served in the Richmond How- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 65 

itzers during the war from 1861 -'65, after which he 
resumed his chair which he filled with marked ability till 
1896, when he resigned on account of failing eyesight; 
a thorough scholar, a conscientious and faithful teacher, 
a noble gentleman, whose influence in behalf of refined 
culture will be felt for years to come. Many of the 
men, trained under his hand, now fill educational posi- 
tions' in leading Colleges and Universities in Virginia and 
the South, and carry on the work so nobly done by him. 

Conclusion. 

It is regretted that these sketches are necessarily so 
fragmentary and incomplete, not for want of material 
but because of restriction in space. It is even more 
regretted that the names of many richly entitled to men- 
tion have to be omitted. It is believed, however, that 
enough has' been said to illustrate the position of Hamp- 
den-SicIney as an "educational force" of great value to 
Virginia and the South and to show that from the first 
day it opened its doors down to and through the period 
covered by the war between the States, has done much 
for the church and country. It may also be remarked 
that if the scope of our inquiry permitted a statement 
in regard to its work to the present time, it could easily 
be shown that during the past forty years its influence has 
not been less potent. The old College, sitting on the hills 
of Prince Edward, in the same position and under the 
same charter that it has worked from the beginning, 
has at present as in the past, high ideals of scholarship 
and character and endeavors to send out into the world 
men well prepared for its duties' and who with masterful 
energy, address themselves to their performance. 



DOES COLLEGE EDUCATION PAY? 

THIS question has been discussed of late with much 
vigor. The opinions of leading men in different 
parts of the country and in various walks of life have 
been gathered, some of which have obtained currency 
through the daily and weekly press, while others have 
been embodied in special treatises. 

The trend of thought seems vastly in favor of the 
affirmative, the facts and figures going to show that edu- 
cated talent, while in the minority, is predominant and 
increasingly in the ascendant in all high places of trust 
and influence. A recognized authority, from data deemed 
ample and reliable, estimated that one of every forty 
college-bred men has attained distinguished usefulness, 
whereas only one in ten thousand of those who have not 
enjoyed this advantage has risen to a like position, the 
proportion in favor of "college education" being as 
250 to I. 

On the other hand, a few gentlemen (notably two) 
of national reputation, great wealth, and, in certain direc- 
tions, of large beneficence, and some others following 
in their wake, have aligned themselves on the negative 
and declare that "education is overdone;" that "the aver- 
age youth ought to go to work at from twelve to fifteen 
years of age," and that "he will be much more likely 
to achieve success and make the most of life" by thus 
early taking up some special line than by wasting his 
time in intellectual improvement and thus unfitting him- 
self for the stern realities and arduous labors to be en- 
countered in the future. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 67 

"What Is Proposed. 

In what follows, it is proposed to look at this ques- 
tion from a practical standpoint, which, so far as ib 
known to the writer, has not heretofore been duly 
occupied, by taking the facts as set forth in the life of 
a single college during a brief period of time as an ex- 
ample of what has been done by this college throughout 
its history, and of what has probably been paralleled and 
possibly exceeded by other similar institutions in Vir- 
ginia and throughout the country. The college selected 
is Hampden-Sidney, chartered in 1783, with a continuous 
history from that time, and the period is the decade from 
1883 to 1893. The reasons for these selections is that 
the writer has entire familiarity with the institution and 
period chosen, and can certify to the substantial accuracy 
and correctness of the facts presented. 

Facts. 

An accurate count shows that during the period above 
named — the sessions of 1884-1893 — one hundred and 
forty-one A. B. graduates went out from Hampden- 
Sidney College. 

As preliminary to the main inquiry and vitally con- 
nected therewith, it is a matter of interest to know where 
these young men came from ; what was the profession or 
vocation of their parents; what prospect they had of 
making their way in the world without an education. 

Their Nativity. — Ninety-six were Virginians ; twenty- 
five West Virginians ; six Texans ; four Kentuckians, and 
the remaining ten from six Southern States. 

Employment of Parents. — Of the fathers of these 
youths, fifty-seven were farmers ; thirty-seven ministers 



68 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

of the gospel ; twenty-eight, business men ; eight, lawyers ; 
seven, physicians; tlircc, mechanics, and one a teacher. 

Financial Status of the Families. — Of the whole num- 
ber, it is not believed that more than one-fifth possessed 
any estate beyond what was necessary, with wise econ- 
omy, for the household maintenance, and of those who 
were better off, not many were in affluent circumstances. 
While these young men were all, or nearly all, sons of 
people of the highest respectability, they were mostly 
so circumstanced in childhood and at college as to en- 
force carefulness in expenditure and, in some cases, much 
self-denial. Few could expect to enter life with any- 
thing to depend on except their character and education 
and their own efforts. Some supported themselves in 
whole or in part by money earned through their own 
labor before entering college, and during the vacations 
of their college course. Others were partly on borrowed 
money, which they have repaid. A few, after leaving 
college, have aided in the education of younger brothers 
and sisters, and so have been later in entering their life- 
work than otherwise would have been the case. 

Present Status of these Young Men. — What has be- 
come of these one hundred and forty-one young men, 
some of whom left college as far back as' 1884, and some 
as late as 1893? This is an interesting question, and its 
answer is the crucial test by which our main inquiry is 
to be decided. The facts arc worthy of close attention 
and ought to be carefully considered. Here they are: 

Of the whole number, thirty-nine selected the Gospel 
ministry as their profession, six of whom became for- 
eign missionaries, one died before finishing his prepara- 
tory course, and one is reported to have changed his 
profession. Thirty-three chose education as their life 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 69 

work, fourteen of whom became professors in universi- 
ties and colleges of the South, six have died, one is in 
infirm heahh, and one is engaged in post-graduate uni- 
versity study. Thirty elected the law as their vocation, 
all of whom except three are successfully, and most of 
them to an unusual degree of success, engaged in their 
work ; two are now pursuing professional study, and one 
is reported to have abandoned his profession. Twenty- 
one entered business, three of whom are editors, two 
cashiers of national banks, two are expert chemists, and 
one has died.* Fourteen selected the medical profession, 
one of whom is in infirm health, and one, after teaching 
for years', is engaged in professional study. Four are 
farmers, diligently and successfully at work. 

Summing Up. 

From this statement it appears that of the one hun- 
dred and thirty-one graduates of the afore mentioned 
decade now alive and in health, one hundred and twenty- 
five hold honorable and influential positions in society, 
command the respect of their fellow men, and are either 
at, or making their way to, the front ; four, after years' 
of self-denying effort, hope soon to engage in their 
chosen work, and only two have become discouraged and 
abandoned the purpose of their life. They are found 
in seventeen states of the Union, in Washington, D. C, 
and in three foreign countries, standing in their lot and 
doing their work well. 

Let these facts anszver the question zvith ivhich ive 
began: Does college education pay? 



* Of the eight who have died, four .deaths were from typhoid 
fever, three from pulmonary consumption and of one the cause 
is unknown. None were from diseases contracted at college. 



70 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Non-Graduates. 

But it may be asked, What has become of the non- 
graduate students who were at Hampden- Sidney during 
the ten years under consideration, and who after one, 
two or more sessions, for one cause or another, left col- 
lege without diplomas? 

To this inquiry the ready response is given that many, 
perhaps a large majority of them, are filling places of 
trust and responsibility, and have earned the confidence 
of their fellow men, and that among them the college 
has some of its most honored alumni and warmest friends 
and supporters, who acknowledge the debt they owe 
their alma mater for the training and impulse they 
received at her hands. Of a number, however, no in- 
formation is' attainable, and consequently no such safe 
induction in regard to them is possible as in the case of 
graduates. 

It must also be understood that "college education" 
means a certain prescribed course of useful knowledge 
mastered, and a definite amount of intellectual and moral 
training achieved, and that it is by those who have gone 
through the curriculum and come out victors at the end, 
the character and worth of any system of education are 
to be judged. Every worthy college asks to be tested by 
this standard. If its graduates obtain competent knowl- 
edge, thorough training and healthful impulse, and are 
fitted to fill well important positions in the world, it 
shows by its fruits that it is doing good work, and that 
youths who find it possible will act wisely in obtaining 
its aid in developing and fitting them for completed man- 
hood. College training helps men "to make the most of 
themselves"; to enjoy life on a higher plane; to do more 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 71 

for their fellows; to serve God more fully and truthfully. 
It places before them ideals seldom presented elsewhere, 
and excites aspiration after better things, not so likely to 
be awakened amid other surroundings. 

Tlic prime factor in inspiring and moulding manly 
character is the Christian family. Next, and subsidiary 
in potent inHuencc, is the Christian college. No young 
man, zvho is able to secure it, can afford to do without 
"college education." In the highest sense of the word, 
It pays ! 

Richard McIlwaine. 
Ilampden-Sidney, Va. 



LEWIS LITTLEPAGE HOLLADAY, 
A. M., LL. D. 

THE subject of this sketch was born February 2^^. 
1832, at Bellefonte, Spottsylvania county Va., 
the ancestral estate of his forefathers since 1702, when it 
was' patented by the British Crown to John Holladay, 
the progenitor of the family in Virginia. He sprang 
from an honorable and sturdy race of people, several of 
whom were distinguished in church and state. In his 
early youth, his father, Lewis Littlepage Holladay, M.D., 
purchased an estate in the county of Orange, where he 
practiced his profession and reared his family and where 
most of his children settled in life. It was from this' 
home that young Holladay, a modest youth of 17 years 
of age, having been nurtured in piety and received such 
educational advantages as his neighborhood afforded, in 
the month of August, 1849, '^vended his way by private 
conveyance over the country roads leading to Hampdcn- 
Sidney College, never dreaming that his whole life with 
the exception of one year was to be spent here or that 
he was to become so important a figure in the history of 
the Institution whose instruction he was seeking. When 
he entered college he was already a member of the Pres- 
byterian church, having become so at his home under the 
ministry of the late Rev. Daniel B. Ewing, D. D., for 
whom he always cherished a very affectionate regard, 
and it may be well to remark here that throughout his 
college course and in an intimate personal acquaintance 
with him during the remainder of his life extending over 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 73 

more than forty-one years, I never knew him to say a 
word or to do an act unworthy of a Christian. This 
testimony is borne by one, who during his student Hfe 
at Hampden-Sidney, was far from being a Christian but 
who knew well what to expect of one and was ever 
keenly on the watch for inconsistencies and blemishes 
in those professing to be such. Holladay's purity of 
speech and behavior was ever untarnished; his truthful- 
ness in word and deed was transparent; his' rectitude of 
character and life was never questioned. 

On entering college he was found prepared in every- 
thing, except Greek, for the Freshman class. On that 
study he had to go the Preparatory School, then taught 
by a tutor entirely separate from the college classes, in 
the upper story of the Steward's Hall, and so rapid was 
his' progress that when the ante-Christmas examinations 
came on he stood with the regular Freshmen and took a 
leading place in his class. It was just after this time, at 
the beginning of the second term on January 3, 1850, that 
I first made his acquaintance, became his classmate and 
soon formed an intimacy and friendship with him which 
strengthened with passing years' and only ended with his 
lamented death on July 23, 1891. When I first met him 
he was a plain-looking country boy, dressed in home- 
spun, as most of the students were at that day, among 
whom were our present honored Governor* ; Rev. John B. 
Shearer, D. D., LL. D., and other men who have since 
reached distinguished eminence and usefulness. There 
was' nothing about him to foretell the man of mark, ex- 
cept a bright twinkle in his eye ; a quick responsive move- 
ment of his features and a strong cordial grasp of the 
hand. These characteristics and the qualities of intellect 
and heart back of them soon won for him the esteem and 

*P. W. McKinney. 



74 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

affection of every man in college and, while in no sense 
was he ever a college hero, there was no one on the roll 
who was more universally respected and loved. Not 
only the good fellows but the bad fellows (of whom we 
unfortunately had a superabundance) ; not only the 
Freshmen but the Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors ; not 
only the bright men and hard workers but the dull fel- 
lows and idlers ; not only his brethren of the Philan- 
thropic Society but the Unions, all liked and honored 
Holladay. He was recognized as easily the first man 
in his class in point of scholarship and was never known 
to fail in a recitation or other college duty or to be guilty 
of a breach of college decorum. He was as popular with 
the faculty as with the students, and the faculty con- 
sisted of very able men. They were Lewis W. Green. 
D. D., President and Professor of Moral Philosophy; 
Charles Martin, LL. D., Professor of Greek and Latin ; 
Charles S. Venable, LL. D., Professor of Mathematics', 
and Joseph R. Wilson, D. D., LL. D., Professor of Phy- 
sical Science. Dr. Green was a genius ; an orator who 
moved his audiences at times with thunderous eloquence ; 
a most inspiring teacher and a high man every way. Dr. 
Martin was a broad and accurate scholar, perhaps the 
fullest man on "TJie Hill" at that day, deeply interested 
in the students, possibly a little inclined to watch them 
too closely, but earnestly engaged to save them from 
trouble and to make them good men. Dr. Venable was 
the youngest member of the faculty but recognized as the 
equal of any of them, strict in the classroom, a superb 
teacher, sympathetic with the boys, and intuitively under- 
standing how to govern them, showing even then the pos- 
session of abilities which have fitted him to become the 
Nestor of the faculty of the University of Virginia. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 75 

Dr. Wilson was then a cultured young preacher and an 
ardent student of science. He made his mark here and 
impressed himself not only on the students but on the 
people of the neighborhood and surrounding counties by 
his brilliant sermons, and was soon called to Staunton, 
Va., then to Augusta, Ga., then to Columbia Theological 
Seminary and is now Professor of Theology in the 
Southwestern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, 
Tenn. These men all loved and admired Holladay 
throughout life and the two last named, who survive 
him, still honor and cherish his memory. 

There is not much else to say of his college life. It 
v/as regular, systematic and successful. He was a fine 
student, was fond of innocent fun, took regular exercise, 
observed early hours and got plenty of sleep; was a 
cheerful and pleasant companion but allowed no man 
on any pretense to interfere with his appointed time for 
study ; was a punctual attendant on his literary society, 
an ardent Phip. and performed every duty assigned him 
but never ventured on his feet except when duty com- 
pelled him. And herein he made, perhaps', the largest 
mistake of his college life. He might have become a 
ready and facile speaker, for he possessed every power 
essential to it, except that afforded only by practice. He 
was chock-full of humor; had a ready wit which was 
sharp and bright, and might have greatly enlarged his 
sphere of usefulness, had he only cultivated the art of 
speaking. As it was', he seldom appeared before a popu- 
lar audience and never except under distress and had no 
comfort in it until he had finished. 

He graduated in the class of 1853 with the highest 
honors, and delivered the valedictory, which was a 
modest and feeling address and made some of us cry. It 



ye ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

was the first time I ever saw a tear stand in his eye, but 
he was a sympathetic, loving friend and this parting from 
those he loved deeply stirred his emotions. There had, 
from the Freshman year up, been from fifty to sixty 
men in the class but they had been gradually sifted out 
until after the final examination there remained only 
nine, as follows : Lindsay H. Blanton, now the distin- 
guished Chancellor of Central University, Ky. ; John B. 
Burwell, major in the Confederate Army and for many 
years President of Peace Institute, Raleigh, N. C. ; 
Charles W. Crawley, engaged successfully most of his 
life as a classical teacher in which he obtained eminence 
— as good and true a man as ever lived. He died in 
Cumberland county about two years ago ; John H. Davis, 
the beloved pastor of Black Walnut Church, Halifax 
county, a fine preacher and a noble man ; Samuel H. 
Davis, one of the best men in the class, who passed 
through Union Theological Seminary and became the 
pastor of the Church in Amelia county, where he died 
in 1858, lamented by all who knew him ; Edward M. 
Henry, for many years a merchant in Norfolk, Va., and 
for a time mayor of the city; Lewis L. Holladay, the 
subject of this sketch; Matthew L. Lacy, at" one time 
pastor in Lewisburg, W. Va., now in IMonroe county, 
W. Va., the leading man in his Presbytery and one of the 
foremost in the Synod of Virginia ; Richward Mcllwaine, 
the writer of this sketch. Every man of us, except one, 
became a preacher or teacher. There was not an inferior 
fellow among them. Without exception they have led 
honorable and useful lives. It is a distinction to belong to 
such a class' and to have been intimately associated with 
such men. 

Immediately on graduation, Holladay was elected by 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 77 

the Board of Trustees tutor of the Preparatory School. 
This office was far different from that of Fellow now 
known in college, and the duties were very dissimilar. 
The tutor was a schoolmaster and his pupils were boys, 
mostly young, but some of them nearly full grown and 
venturesome, whom he had not only to teach, but to gov- 
ern and control, and sometimes to flog. My distinguished 
friend, Major R. M. Venable, leading Professor of Law 
in the University of Maryland, at Baltimore, who was a 
scholar at the time, testifies to the faithful and successful 
performance by the tutor of all his duties including the 
use of the rod. Dr. Richard Busby, head-master of West- 
minster School in the boyhood of the famous John Locke, 
boasted before he died, that sixteen of the bishops who 
then occupied the bench had been birched with his "little 
rod," and it would be interesting to know how many men 
were helped during that year by the discipline adminis- 
tered by the young tutor. He was muscular and strong 
and unacquainted with the emotion of fear, and when one 
day (according to Major Venable's account) a conspiracy 
among four or live of the older boys was formed to bring 
his authority into contempt, all having agreed to stand 
by the aggressor, no sooner had the offence, which was of 
a serious character, been given, than he was seized and 
dealt with so summarily that his compatriots stood back 
and let him bear the brunt of the tutor's indignation. 
There was order and decorum in that school from that 
day on, and it turned out some distinguished men. 

In the fall of 1854, Holladay entered the University 
of Virginia. His life there was uneventful but he came 
out at the close of the session with diplomas on Latin, 
Greek and Mathematics, besides attending the class on 
Physics but not offering for graduation. At the end of 



78 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

this session he was elected Professor of Physical Science 
in Hampden-Sidney College, which position he continued 
to hold throughout life. At times during his incumbency, 
he taught for longer or shorter periods the classes of 
Latin, Greek, Mathematics and Moral Philosophy and 
for several sessions during the absence or sickness of 
the President performed the administrative duties of the 
College — all to the entire satisfaction of the trustees, the 
faculty and the students. For many years he was also 
clerk of the faculty and curator of the college. In the 
year 1856, soon after he entered on his professorial 
duties, Prof. Holladay was united in marriage to Miss 
Nannie Morton, of Buffaloe, Prince Edward county, who 
continued throughout his life his beloved and trusted 
wife, and who, while now mourning and deploring his 
loss, is comforted by the thought that no woman ever 
had a truer or purer man for husband. 

In estimating Prof. Holladay's rank as a professor, it 
goes without the saying that he was thoroughly qualified, 
faithful in the performance of his duties and a good 
teacher. The late President Atkinson, who was his col- 
league for twenty-five years, told me that he had attended 
his classes for a session and that he regarded him a very 
fine lecturer, and one of the best instructors he ever 
knew. Perhaps the marked excellence of his' teaching, 
apart from and beyond the regular and necessary drill 
of the classroom, consisted in its power to reach and 
stimulate the great majority of his students. Very few 
young men passed under his hand, however inattentive 
they might be in other departments, who were not waked 
up and made to think. It was as an educator rather than 
a specialist that he was peculiarly distinguished, and he 
thus impressed many minds, aroused them to a con- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 79 

sciousness of their powers and put them in the way of 
using their abihties. 

As a member of the faculty and officer of the college, 
Prof. Holladay obtained deserved eminence. Possibly, 
from temperament as well as a matter of judgment, a 
little too disinclined to note offences until they had be- 
come flagrant ; possibly, too, when they were no longer 
concealed but must be dealt with disposed to be some- 
what too lenient, his error, if he erred at all, was on 
the right side, and it may have resulted in aiding and 
saving more than it injured. However this was, he was 
a tower of strength in the faculty, every member of 
which loved and trusted him, and he was greatly honored 
and respected by the students. As a Christian, Prof. 
Holladay was modest and unassuming but earnest and 
practical. As an elder in college church, his services 
were constant and cheerful. Perhaps no man in the com- 
munity at the time of his death had so strong a hold on 
all classes and conditions' of people in and out of the 
church. He was kind to the poor ; sympathetic with 
those in distress ; a welcome visitor to the sick ; a coun- 
cellor to the troubled. He was preeminently a man of 
peace. He loved it ; "studied the things that made for" 
it and communicated it to many souls. He was a very 
generous man. His was not a religion that consisted in 
"good wordb', that butter no parsnips," but he was ever 
ready to help in every good work and in proportion to his 
means was a bountiful giver. As a citizen he was in 
thorough accord with his neighbors and friends on all 
questions of policy ; was public spirited and ever ready 
to bear his portion of every burden. 

In the year 1885, he received the degree of Doctor 
of Laws from Central University, Ky. ; an honor espe- 



8o ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

cially pleasing to him as it was conferred by an institu- 
tion presided over by his old friend and classmate, Rev. 
Dr. L. H. Blanton, and which several years before had 
honored him by an invitation to one of its professorial 
chairs. 

His death was both sudden and unexpected. One 
afternoon at five o'clock I saw him apparently in health 
and engaged in pleasant friendly conversation. The next 
morning at the same hour I was summoned to his resi- 
dence, but he was not there. The body was laid out for 
burial. The spirit had departed to the better world. 
Using the language in a Christian sense, the words em- 
ployed by Xenophon to describe Socrates may well be 
applied to this incomparable man : "He was so pious, 
that he did nothing without the advice of the gods ; so 
just, that he never injured anyone even in the least; so 
completely master of himself, that he never chose the 
agreeable instead of the good ; so discerning that he never 
failed to distinguish the better from the worse. He was 
just the best and happiest man possible." 



SOME ESSENTIALS IN THE IMPROVEMENT 
OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

THE importance of our public schools to society and 
the State cannot be over estimated. Conditions in 
Virginia at present are vastly different from what they 
were formerly and the only hope of the wide diffusion of 
good educational advantages lies in the public schools. 
Classical academies and institutes, under private owner- 
ship or maintained by associated effort, doubtless have 
their place to fill and many of them will continue to exist 
as indispensable factors in promoting higher education, 
but not one in a thousand of the boys and girls of Virginia 
has the means to attend them. Church schools, too, under 
sectarian impulse, may be maintained here and there 
more or less regularly, but really there is no need of 
them and no place for them in a country like ours, where 
thought is free as the air and every one is at liberty to 
embrace that form of doctrine which commends itself as 
truth. They have never had any strong hold on the 
people of Virginia and I regard the present reaction in 
their favor as the result of well-meant sectarian zeal, 
wrongly directed. What we need under a republican 
form of government where the people belong to many 
different church organizations, is a point of unity where 
they can come together and bring their combined ener- 
gies to bear in behalf of a primary and secondary 
education, good for all and open to all. The nearest 
approach to this' yet discovered and that which most fully 



82 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

meets the demands of the case, is found in the public 
school system, properly developed and administered. It 
is by no means perfect. What we are aiming at is its 
improvement. 

But just here, at the very beginning, we find our- 
selves encompassed by serious' embarrassments. A capi- 
tal difficulty confronts us by reason of our heterogeneous 
and scattered population. If the people of Virginia were 
wholly white or wholly colored, the problem would be 
simplified, but about one-third of the population of the 
state and more than one-half of the population of Prince 
Edward and its' sister counties is composed of negroes, 
social contact Avith whom in the schools is impracticable 
and impossible. No one, not living under these condi- 
tions, can form an adequate idea of the difficulty and 
perplexity caused by them. But, my friends, the fathers 
and founders of the Old Dominion, among whom were 
tlie first settlers of Prince Edward and its sister counties, 
overcame difficulties and put aside perplexities in laying 
broad and deep the foundations of this commonwealth, 
and so you, their children, under changed conditions must 
meet your responsibilities and bear your burdens. God 
has been with us in the past and will doubtless continue 
with us in the future. All we need to insure success is an 
intelligent appreciation of the situation and a determined 
and persistent discharge of the duties growing out of it. 

In the development of my subject, I ask your assent 
to the following propositions: ist, We need better 
schools and school houses. 2nd, In order to secure these 
we must have competent and well paid teachers; longer 
school terms, fewer school houses and submit to local 
taxation as a supplement to the fund derived from the 
State. 3rd, In order to this, we must have more 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 83 

sympathetic interest in the schools by the people, more 
faithful and enlightened superintendents of schools and 
more intelligent and patriotic school trustees. 

I need dwell but a little while on my first proposition, 
for it is generally admitted that schools outside of cities 
and towns are not infrequently poor, the teachers often 
incompetent, sometimes immoral ; and the school houses 
ugly, uncomfortable, and badly furnished, with excep- 
tions here and there, but the exceptions' so rare in rural 
communities as rather to emphasize than to disprove the 
rule. 

Let us for a moment look at this' state of facts. We 
must be careful, however, not to exaggerate the evils, 
but only to look them squarely in the face. 

It is a depressing fact that many of our schools 
change teachers every year, or at least, every year or 
two. There is no permanency about them. Teachers 
and children come together as strangers and by the time 
they get acquainted, they part. There is no knowledge 
of the pupil, of his capacity, proclivities', and character- 
istics, on the part of the teacher, and no affection and 
kind regard for the teacher by the pupil. There is no 
permanent interest in one another and no steady progress 
in the school. Things are at a dead level. A minimum 
of instruction is given and a minimum of progress made. 

The case is, however, in many instances, worse than 
this, for the testimony is overwhelming that not a few 
of our public schools are taught by men and women of 
little education, whose example and influence are far 
from inspiring and whose instruction is of little worth. 
Others testify that in some cases' teachers are immoral. 
I have been told of a white teacher, who was known in 
his neighborhood to be utterly untrustworthy, and two 



84 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

gentlemen in this county have asserted in my presence 
that a certain colored school taught hy a certain colored 
teacher is a hot bed of dissension and the breeding place 
of all sorts of foolish and vain expectations, while the 
children are taught little or nothing of value, but become 
adepts in vicious practices. 

As to school houses, it is very sure that comparatively 
few of them are neat and comfortable and elevating in 
structure or surroundings. They are generally little 
wooden affairs without architectural beauty or propor- 
tion and devoid of paint or other adornment, stuck away 
in the edge of a piece of wood, or worse, of an unshaded 
held, the faithful picture of forlorn hopelessness and of 
the entire absence of aspiration. The inside of these 
seats of learning, where the future sovereigns of Virginia 
are being prepared for the high duties of citizenship, are 
as uninviting as the aspect from without, with not a 
thing that is pleasing to the eye and not much convenient 
to the hand or stimulating to the mind. It is a dreary 
waste within as without. 

2nd, May I now take it for granted that you agree 
with me in thinking that "we need better schools and 
school houses?" If so, then the question arises, how are 
we to get them ? In reply to this inquiry, I beg to restate 
by second proposition, to wit, "we must have competent 
and well paid teachers, longer school terms, fewer school 
houses and must submit to local taxation to supplement 
what is derived from the State fund." 

A competent teacher is a well educated teacher, a 
thoroughly trained teacher, a teacher truly interested in, 
and who gives his time and attention to, his work; a 
person, whether man or woman, white or colored, whose 
character is above reproach and whose conduct is beyond 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 85 

suspicion. This is the kind of teachers we endeavor to 
get in our institutions of higher learning and it is the 
"kind we ought to seek for our pubhc schools. No parent 
ought to be willing to entrust his child to the care of 
an ignorant, ill-mannered or immoral guide. The school 
authorities are culpable if, without proper inquiry or 
wilfully, they impose such a teacher on confiding parents. 
All such ought to be weeded out of the profession. 
Better close your school than have your children injured 
by the defects and misdemeanors of such creatures. 

But if you want good teachers, you must give them 
reasonable compensation for their services. Well do I 
remember that many years ago I was told by a venerable 
minister of the gospel of the pittance he received as his 
salary, to which I replied in astonishment, "Why, doctor, 
that is dreadfully poor pay," when he said, ''Poor pay, 
poor preach." So I say, "Poor pay, poor teach." If you 
want a good teacher, you must pay him, just as when 
you want a good lawyer, or doctor, or carpenter, or 
blacksmith, you pay him the value of his service. It is 
ridiculous to expect educated and high-minded men and 
women, except in rare cases in which they submit to it 
in the interest of religion and as a means of doing good, 
to endure extraordinary privation and cut themselves off 
from profitable employment in order to educate other 
people's children. It is ridiculous, but it is about the size 
of the public expectation that for the pittance of $32 per 
month for male teachers and $26 per month for females 
in schools with about five month's terms, these competent 
individuals shall give their time to teach the young idea 
how to shoot and guide their immature feet into the 
paths of virtue and goodness. It is a vain hope. You 
already have as good and in many cases much better 



86 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

teachers than your money pays for, and if you wish the 
teaching and the schools improved, you must use means, 
and if need he submit to privation, to obtain competent 
teachers and useful schools. 

As subsidiary to this, we must have longer school 
terms; i. e., more of the time of the teachers must be 
employed than four, five or six months in the year. I 
am aware that in pressing this point, I have to meet an- 
other patent and potent difficulty, to wit, the fact that in 
our rural communities, many parents find it necessarv 
to have their children over ten or twelve years of age as 
helps on the farm and cannot afford their absence until 
the crops are gathered in the fall, or longer than the time 
when it is necessary to pitch the crops in the spring. This 
necessity is not universal but in some parts of the state 
it is general and it constitutes a very great barrier to 
perfecting the schools. 

In some of the counties of North Carolina, this diffi- 
culty is met in the follow ing manner ; the annual school 
session is divided into two terms of five months each, 
the first for younger children up to ten years of age, 
running from May to September inclusive, and the sec- 
ond for older children over ten years old, running from 
November through March, thus furnishing a ten months' 
session to the teacher and school accommodations in the 
same house for double the number of children who could 
otherwise be provided for. This plan is set forth lucidly 
in an interesting paper read before the Richmond Meet- 
ing of the Southern Educational Association by Col. S. 
F. Venable and is said to be working admirably in Bun- 
combe and perhaps other counties in North Carolina. 
Whether it is practicable or not in \''irginia and I^rince 
Edward is a question for school trustees in conference 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 87 

with patrons of the schools to determine. Certainly 
something must be done to employ teachers for a longer 
term, if good schools are to be maintained. For employ- 
ment for the longer term of itself increases the pay of the 
teacher. A man or woman whose time is occupied for 
ten months is in a much better position than one who is 
employed for only a part of that time. 

But the salary at present given to most country teach- 
ers is ridiculous. It is less than many laboring men re- 
ceive, less than reputable mechanics, or workers in facto- 
ries' or successful boot blacks earn, and we ought not to 
be content to allow those to whom are assigned such im- 
portant and elevated duties, from a social, intellectual or 
moral standpoint, to do this important work at starvation 
and depressing wages. The teacher ought to be well paid 
and the school houses neat, comfortable and well fur- 
nished. All admit the justice and economy of this. 

The improvement in teachers implies an improvement 
in the school houses, their furniture, appliances and sur- 
roundings, but this advance cannot be made so long as 
such an unnecessary multiplicity of schools exist. Ac- 
cording to the report of the Superintendent of Public 
Instruction for 1 900-1 901, there were only five out of 
forty-tw^o white schools in Prince Edward which main- 
tained an average attendance of twenty pupils', while 
there were twenty-one — exactly one-half — which fell be- 
low fifteen pupils. I know of three schools in this county 
in an area where there ought to be but one. It is objected 
that if this consolidation is accomplished some of the 
scholars will have to walk two or three miles, which, to 
me, seems to have no force whatever. Some of you, and 
many of your fathers and mothers, and grandfathers and 
grandmothers walked three, four or five miles to school, 



88 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

and it made men and women of them, and the children of 
this generation are no better than their forebears. Many 
of the most able, influential and useful men of former 
times and of the present day in the Commonwealth of 
Virginia had this experience, and it is a necessary inci- 
dent to the scattered condition of our population that it 
shall continue a while longer, if the educational advan- 
tages offered our children are not to continue to be the 
merest farce. 

As I said a moment ago, "we must have well-paid 
teachers and neat, comfortable and well-furnished school 
houses." How is this most desirable end to be attained? 
Something else is necessary besides the diminution of 
school houses, and I insist that one of the great desiderata 
in accomplishing this object and without which it cannot 
probably be attained, is increased taxation — local taxa- 
tion in addition to what the State furnishes. 

According to advanced sheets of the Virginia School 
Report for 1900-1901, the total State fund for last year 
amounted to $1,029,373.80, which was all in hand to pay 
for administration and all other charges, together with 
the support of the schools. Let us suppose that the 
whole fund were devoted to the support of the schools, 
then there would have been but $1.47 per capita for the 
school population of the Commonwealth ; $2.69 per cap- 
ita for the pupils enrolled ; and $4.57 per capita for those 
in daily average attendance. This shows you how wretch- 
edly inadequate the State fund is to the support of repu- 
table schools and how necessary it is that it be supple- 
mented by local taxation. 

Governor Montague, the honored Chief Magistrate 
of Virginia, has said sententiously and wisely, "I would 
rather have one good school within five miles of my house 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 89 

than five poor schools at my door." "Good schools" are 
what we need. Are you wilHng to pay for them? 

In the Constitution of the State of Virginia under 
which we are now Hving, there are found two provisions, 
not heretofore existing, which it is beHeved go far in 
aiding in the solution of this knotty problem. 

The first of these is found in section 173 in the Article 
on Taxation and Finance, and is as follows : 

"The General Assembly may authorize the Board of 
Supervisors of any county or the council of any city or 
town to levy an additional capitation tax not exceeding 
one dollar per annum on every such resident within its 
limits," (i. e., on every male resident not less than twenty 
one years of age,) "which shall be applied in aid of the 
public schools of said county, city or town, or for such 
other county, city or town purpose as they shall deter- 
mine." 

The object of this provision is two fold — (i) to get 
some tax from every male citizen, so far as possible. At 
present, many citizens pay no tax for the support either 
of the schools or the government; (2) in counties, cities 
and towns that desire it, to give larger support to the 
public schools. 

The second provision is found in section 136 in the 
Article on Education and Public Instruction, and is as 
follows : "Each county, city, town, if the same be a sepa- 
rate school district, and school district is authorized to 
raise additional sums by a tax on property, not to exceed 
in the aggregate five mills on the dollar in any one year, 
to be apportioned and expended by the local school au- 
thorities of said counties, cities, towns and districts in es- 
tablishing and maintaining such schools as in Iheir judg- 
ment the public welfare may require." 



90 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

The object of this provision is entirely different from 
that of the former, to wit, to clothe the people in the 
counties, cities, towns and school districts of the State 
with authority to tax themselves for the maintenance of 
graded and high schools, a most important feature which 
must be added to our public school system, in order to 
give it full efficiency. I am glad to see that the county 
of Charlotte is the pioneer in laying hold of this privi- 
lege and has determined to levy a tax for the full amount 
allowed for the purpose of establishing within her bor- 
ders schools of a higher grade than have existed there 
heretofore. Shall not Prince Edward come next? Will 
not the trustees of our several school districts and the 
people of the county awake to the importance of this mat- 
ter and give our young people, male and female, the op- 
portunity to fit themselves for higher and broader and 
larger usefulness in life? 

In this connection, I beg to call your attention to the 
"Southern" or "Ogden Educational" Movement, which 
has aroused much interest, north and south, and which, 
I understand, is organized and intended to stimulate, fos- 
ter and assist just such advances in education as I am 
advocating. But let it be noted as certain that nothing 
can be expected from this source until we express a will- 
ingness to co-operate and to do for ourselves what is in 
our power, whereas if we move towards the goal, they 
will join hands with us in the establishment and mainte- 
nance of a first-rate system of public education. Fortu- 
nately for Prince Edward, it has strong and influential 
friends among those most intimately connected with this 
movement. First, there is Dr. J. L. M. Curry, chairman 
of the Campaign Committee for the whole South, who 
knows Prince Edward well and has some close associa- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 91 

tions here. Then there are Dr. Charles W. Dabney, di- 
rector of the Bureau of Information and Investigation, 
and Professor J. D. Eggleston, secretary and editor, both 
born and bred in Prince Edward and graduates of its old 
College, Hampden-Sidney. Then there are Dr. Robert 
Frazer, for some years resident among you as president 
of the State Female Normal School, and Hon. Henry St. 
George Tucker, than whom there is no more broad- 
minded gentleman in the Commonwealth — field agents 
for Virginia. In view of these facts and the possibilities 
which they appear to open up, I exhort the people of 
Farmville and Prince Edward to arouse themselves to 
embrace this opportunity, to put your shoulders to the 
wheel, every man to take up cheerfully his part of the 
burden and thus place the old county far in advance along 
educational lines of what it has ever been in the past. 

Third. But if all this were //;/ fait accompli, something 
else is necessary. The system would not be complete, for 
there would be no assurance for the future that through 
lack of interest on the part of the people or by reason of 
maladministration by those in whose hands school man- 
agement is placed, there will not be gradual deterioration 
and peraianent inefficiency and therefore I come to my 
third and last proposition — to wit : "We must have more 
sympathetic interest in the schools by the people, more 
faithful and enlightened superintendents of schools and 
more intelligent and patriotic school trustees." 

I. An essential element in the prosperity of any insti- 
tution of learning is the cordial support it receives from 
its patrons and the people by whom it is surrounded. 
Without this, the schools of whatever grade may get 
along in a hum-drum kind of way and do good work, its 
teachers faithfully but drearily performing their duties 



92 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

and the scholars going wearily through with their tasks', 
but where there is lack of inspiration, approval and en- 
couragement from without, the actors are thrown back 
on the sole reserve of conscientious discharge of duty ; 
the strongest, the most stable, the most trustworthy of 
all correct incentives to action indeed, and yet, which 
when alone, often leaves the soul in disconsolation and 
doubt. Even strong men, engaged in arduous work, need 
the sympathy and expressed regard of their fellows' for 
their comfort and support and full efficiency. How much 
more men of sensitive organism and tender women, em- 
ployed in the onerous task of developing the intellectual 
faculties of the young, of placing before them the mental 
pabulum by feeding on which they will acquire growth 
and strength and stimulus for higher endeavor and of in- 
fluencing them by wholesome instruction and example to 
avoid the evil and choose the right and good in life. 
Surely the teacher of all men deserves the sympathy and 
encouragement of right-thinking and virtuous people and 
every community ought to keep alive, and on proper oc- 
casion to express its sincere interest in its schools, in 
their work, in their teachers, in their pupils. No com- 
munity can afford to leave its schools alone without coun- 
tenance, sympathy and assistance. Every man, woman 
and child, be he patron or pupil, or without any direct 
connection therewith, ought to feel himself under obliga- 
tion to do all in his power to speed the good work and to 
cheer on those immediately engaged in it. The influence 
for good of such sympathetic consideration and action 
will be two- fold — (i) in stimulating teachers and pupils 
to higher aims and efforts; and (2) by a natural and 
necessary reaction on the community in elevating its tone, 
enlarging its intelligence and putting it on a higher plane 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 93 

of living and acting. By all means, my f rie.Kls do what 
you can to promote the welfare of the needful mst.tu- 
tions within your gates, and, so far as m you hes, m- 
fluence your neighbors in .his and the adjo.n.ng count.es 
to do the same. In blessing others, you will also be 

"'T But not only must the attitude of the people to- 
wards the schools be friendly and helpful It ,s essent.al 
that the officers into whose hands these vital .ntejests are 
entrusted, the superintendents of schools and the schoo 
trustees, shall be men of character, of nUelhgence, o 
loyalty to duty, whose only concern in the d..diarge of 
official functions is to promote the welfare of the schools 
and of those connected with them. 

That this has not been the case always is too plain to 
require discussion ; that it is not universally true at pres- 
ent is well known to those, who during late months, have 
given attention to the subject. While many of these offi- 
cers have been and are excellent in every respect and 
have performed their duties intelligently and assiduously 
any others have not been worth a fig -d have tised 
their office for personal ends. There is no doubt abou 
this Its exact truth cannot be seriously questioned b> 
anyone informed on the subject. A young man. a grad- 
uaie of Hampden-Sidney College, taught a public school 
:„ one of the eastern counties of the State. He never saw 
the county superintendent until the closing day of the ses- 
sion, when that gentleman put in an appearance, shook 
hands with him, told him that the patrons of the school 
were pleased with him, and would be glad to have him re- 
turn and bade him good-bye. In one of the most impor- 
tant counties of the State, a '-'""' ^"f -^'"'^"P:;; 
tendent was superseded by a man of dubious character 



94 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

and life, who had a poHtical pull and who was of no man- 
ner of use in the office to which he was appointed. In 
another county, a physician of political influence and 
large practice was appointed to this office, wdio in the 
nature of things was incapacitated by professional en- 
gagements from attending to its duties. These are speci- 
men cases and the thing was seen to be so bad that in 
our late Constitutional Convention, it was seriously con- 
sidered whether it be not better to abolish the office alto- 
gether, and many were avowedly in favor of this propo- 
sition, but after protracted conference it was deemed 
wiser to continue the office and to constitute the State 
Board of Education so that it would no longer be a politi- 
cal body, but most largely composed of educators, de- 
voted to the work throughout the State, whose appoint- 
ments will henceforth be made in the interest of the 
schools and not of a political party. It is hoped that this 
arrangement will gradually eliminate the worthless school 
superintendents and fill their places with good and effi- 
cient men. 

The matter of school trustees is also one of great im- 
portance. Many of them are competent and disinterested 
and discharge their duties wisely and well. ]\Tany others 
use the office to secure positions for relatives and friends, 
regardless of fitness and for the location of school houses, 
not for the convenience of the community, but of them- 
selves or of certain favored individuals. Nepotism and 
favoritism are the two curses which attach to this office. 
They must be gotten rid of or there is little prospect of 
much improvement. In the late Constitutional Conven- 
tion I was anxious to have the election of school trustees 
by the people engrafted on the fundamental law of the 
land as an indispensable principle, but after full exami- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 95 

nation of the question under our peculiar circumstances 
and the possibihties growing out of them, it appeared 
wiser to leave its adjustment to the Legislature. It is 
hoped that the General Assembly will see its way clear to 
deal with this question at an early day. In my opinion, 
we will never have good and efficient school trustees until 
they are made directly responsible to the people and the 
people have authority to turn out unworthy and put in 
good men. 

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I have endeavored as 
briefly as possible and in plain, straightforward language 
to lay before you some of the prominent defects of our 
public school system, with the suggestion of some im- 
provements which will add greatly to its efficiency and 
usefulness. In the final analysis the responsibility rests 
on the people, on you and on me. It is the duty of every 
citizen to keep himself informed on these questions and 
in touch with all movements for the betterment of our 
social condition. We must look to the character and 
ability of those who make and administer our laws and 
put intelligent and honest men in official positions. Next 
to the church of Christ, including in it the Christian 
family, the school-house is the most important factor in 
the enlargement of intelligence, the increase of virtue and 
the elevation of our social status. We owe it to God, to 
our country, to our State, to our county, to our families, 
to our friends, to the rising generation and to generations' 
yet unborn, to do all in our power to promote and perfect 
this great agency for the betterment of mankind. You 
cnn do something towards this end. I can do something. 
Let us arise and be about it. 

I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your kind pres- 
ence and attention. 



LOCAL TAXATION FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

UNDER THE PRESENT STATE 

CONSTITUTION. 

Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

THERE are two provisions in the Constitution of 
Virginia which authorize ''local taxation for public 
schools." 

The first of these is found in section 136, under the 
"Article on Education and Public Instruction," and is as 
follows: "Each county, city, town, if the same be a sepa- 
rate school district, and school district is authorized to 
raise additional sums by a tax on property not to exceed 
in the aggregate five mills on the dollar in any one year, 
to be apportioned and expended by the local school au- 
thorities of said counties', cities, towns and districts in 
establishing and maintaining such schools as in their 
judgment the public welfare may require: provided, that 
such primary schools as may be established in any one 
year shall be maintained at least four months of that 
school year, before any part of the fund assessed and 
collected may be devoted to the establishment of schools 
of higher grade. The boards of supervisors of the sev- 
eral counties and the councils of the several cities and 
towns, if the same be separate school districts, shall pro- 
vide for the levy and collection of such local school taxes. 

The second provision is found in section 173, under 
the "Article on Taxation and Finance," last clause of the 
section — as follows: "The General Assembly may au- 
thorize the board of supervisors of any county or the 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 97 

council of any city or town, to levy an additional capi- 
tation tax not exceeding one dollar per annum on every 
such resident within its limits, which shall be applied in 
aid of the public schools of such county, city or town, or 
for such other county, city or town purpose as they shall 
determine." 

Both these provisions are local and voluntary and can- 
not be enforced except through the supervisors or coun- 
cils' elected by the people. Both, therefore, conform to 
the fundamental principles of local self-government. 
They are not imposed by superior authority, but are vol- 
untarily assumed. Both have in view primarily the im- 
provement of the advantages offered the children of the 
locality and ultimately the increased intelligence and cul- 
ture of the people, the enlarged interest of householders 
and tax-payers in the betterment of their school system, 
and, generally speaking, the purification of the franchise, 
the elevation of the masses, the promotion of virtue, the 
advancement of civilization and the making of our State 
in reality, as well as in name, "the land of the free and 
the home of the brave — "the land of the free," of men 
delivered from the thraldom of ignorance, sensuality and 
vice, who think and act for themselves independently and 
correctly, who keep before them high ideals of right and 
of life, and who ever seek to improve their own condition 
and the condition of those about them practically, intel- 
lectually, socially and morally; "the home of the brave," 
of citizens, who, having tasted the blessings of freedom 
and of intellectual and social light, have the courage of 
their convictions and are ready, if need be, to exert in- 
fluence, to make sacrifices, to endure hardness and to put 
forth effort not only for themselves and their families, 



98 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

but for their fellows, not so highly favored and for gen- 
erations yet to come. 

The first provision, v^^hich allows the assessment of a 
tax of five mills on the dollar of property has reference 
wholly to the upbuilding of the public schools and their 
improvement from every point of view, and is already at 
the command of the legalized authorities to be put into 
operation at their discretion. In carrying out this pro- 
vision the General Assembly has enacted that, "the board 
of supervisors of each county . . . shall levy a tax 
of not less than seven and a half cents, nor more than 
twenty cents, on the one hundred dollars of the assessed 
value of the real and personal property in the county for 
the support of the public free schools of the county and a 
tax of not less than seven and a half cents on the hundred 
dollars of the assessed value of the real and personal 
property in any school district for district school pur- 
poses." The General Assembly also provides that if the 
levy is not sufficient for county or district school support, 
on a petition from the county school board, the question 
of other school taxation may be submitted to the qualified 
voters of county or district. 

The second constitutional provision, which permits' a 
supplementary poll-tax of one dollar, can be utilized only 
by act of the General Assembly and may be directed to 
the upbuilding of schools or to any other useful purpose. 
It is to the first of these methods that reference is made 
chiefly, as the second will probably not be called into 
action until the resources' of the first are exhausted or to 
accomplish some subsidiary purpose with only indirect 
reference to public schools. 

It is worthy of special remark that not only cities and 
counties have the privilege of levying a local tax for 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 99 

schools, but that "towns, if separate school districts," and 
"school districts" subordinate to counties are accorded the 
same right. This fact is of interest because it gives scope 
for improvement not only to the larger divisions of the 
school system, but also to their more alert and progressive 
sub-divisions. If a county as a whole is unwilling to bear 
voluntary taxation, while one of its districts feels able 
and anxious to advance, the latter cannot be kept back 
by the lethargy or poverty of the former, but is free to go 
forward in its beneficent endeavor to perfect its school 
facilities and advantages. This provision is of great 
value — (i) as it enables small bodies of aggressive and 
enlightened citizens to combine for the betterment of 
their conditions, and (2) as such action sets an example 
which will probably be followed by adjacent districts and 
counties. 

The most notable thing, however, about the provision 
in section 136 is that the local tax collected is "to be ap- 
portioned and expended by the local school authorities of 
such counties, cities', towns and districts in establishing 
and maintaining such schools as in their judgment the 
public welfare may require," the only proviso being "that 
such primary schools as may be established in any school 
year shall be maintained at least four months of that 
year, before any part of the fund assessed and collected 
may be devoted to the establishment of schools of higher 
grade," i. e., it is mandatory that the primary schools 
shall be kept open at least four months in the year, 
though they ought to be, and doubtless in most cases will 
be, maintained for a much longer period. 

Here, now, is something entirely new in the Constitu- 
tion of Virginia — a provision which looks indeed to the 
prevalance of good primary schools as the essential basis 



loo ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

of all others, and these to be maintained a certain mini- 
mum of time, but which has for its chief object the estab- 
lishment of graded and high schools' to such an extent as 
the judgment of local authorities may deem necessary for 
the public welfare. This, then, is a provision that looks 
to higher education, which has for its object not merely 
to communicate the rudiments, but the awakening of the 
intelligence to higher departments of thought and leading 
it along lines which tend to incite aspiration and effort 
and cause it to seek after high and noble things and to 
exercise itself in obtaining and using them. The public 
school fund derived from the State, with the addition of 
so much of that gotten from local taxation as may be 
necessary to maintain primary schools for all children at 
least four months in the year must be used for that pur- 
pose. After that, every dollar obtained from local tax- 
ation may be employed by local authorities in improving 
the educational advantages of the district, county or city, 
as "the public welfare may demand." 

It ought also to be emphasized that while five mills 
on the dollar of property is the maximum of local tax 
allowed in any one year, supervisors of counties are re- 
quired to levy annually three-fourths of one mill, and at 
the request of the school board may levy as much as two 
mills on the dollar of property to meet the needs of the 
county schools and the same amount for district schools. 
If they fail to levy enough to supply the wants of the 
schools, then, on petition in writing from the school 
board, they are required to refer the question to the qual- 
ified voters of the county or district, as the case may be. 
It is important to notice that in such vote, instead of the 
maximum allowed, any smaller amount agreed on — say, 
one mill, or even the half of one mill — may be taken. I 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. loi 

am careful to call your attention to this point — (i) be- 
cause a very large portion of the tax-payers in the coun- 
ties in vast sections of Virginia are poor and find any in- 
crease of taxation burdensome; (2) because local taxa- 
tion, if not cautiously managed, will arouse antagonism, 
hurtful to the cause and an impediment to progress; (3) 
because there seems to be in the make-up of a good many 
men an almost irrational prejudice against increased 
taxation, however laudable the object or promising and 
profitable its results. The old maxim, Festina lentc 
(Hasten slowly) is certainly applicable here. 

Two things are naturally suggested by what has been 
said — (i) Local taxation is not generally popular in the 
counties, and needs' to be handled with discretion. I say 
"in the counties," and, with some exceptions, this is true, 
and yet it is in the counties that interest chiefly centers, 
as cities and towns are abundantly able to take care of 
themselves and are generally doing so; (2) any perma- 
nent improvement in the public schools is' involved in and 
dependent on local taxation and can hardly be attained 
without it. 

The only remark that needs to be made under the first 
head is in reference to the kind of men who ought to be 
chosen as superintendents of divisions and school trus- 
tees. It goes without the saying, that they ought to be 
men of intelligence, of information, of industry, of unsel- 
fishness and of courage, who, having undertaken a trust 
have moral force enough to recognize the obligations they 
assume and to address themselves to their discharge. It 
is a reproach on the Commonwealth of Virginia that in 
the past its public school system has been so largely a part 
of the political machine. It is a harbinger of good for 
the future that the State Board of Education, as at 



102 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

present constituted, has declared the system non-political 
and taken steps for its administration as such. But I 
seriously doubt whether the system will ever become 
what it ought to be until these officials are elected by the 
people, and thus made directly amenable to the people. 
These men have high and holy responsibilities resting on 
them, and it is their province to understand the duties 
they owe, to manifest interest in the sphere of effort they 
occupy and to evoke the sympathy and co-operation of 
their neighbors and fellow-citizens in all plans for for- 
ward movements. When they fail in this they ought to 
drop out and leave room for others capable of handling 
the situation. The best judges of these qualifications and 
of the discharge of these duties are the people for whose 
benefit the schools are maintained and among whom these 
school officials live and act. When the people have confi- 
dence in the integrity, wisdom and zeal of their officers, 
they will listen cheerfully to their suggestions, follow 
their advice and co-operate in their measures. 

The second point — namely, the dependence of the 
school system on local taxation for improvement — needs 
fuller elucidation and illustration. 

I have it on high authority, as proceeding from the 
officers of the superintendent of public instruction and 
the secretary of the State Board of Education, that "the 
best school systems are to be found where the local taxes 
are relied on to run the schools," and, again, "if our 
schools are to be improved, the improvement must come 
from additional funds raised by local taxation." These 
are pregnant sentences' and mav well awaken profound 
interest on the subject. 

If the question be asked, In what localities the best 
school systems in the United States are found? the an- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 103 

swer will come back readily from all lips qualified to 
speak, in the North Atlantic, North Central and Western 
divisions' of the country — in Massachusetts, New York, 
Michigan, California, etc. — and the answer is justified by 
the facts. The schools in those divisions and representa- 
tive States have longer terms, are better housed, pay 
more remunerative salaries, have more ample appliances' 
and generally offer their pupils far better advantages 
than those in the South Atlantic and South Central div- 
isions. It is also true that the grand divisions of the 
country which lead in educational facilities also derive 
much the larger share of the funds used by them from 
local taxation, while the divisions in which the advan- 
tages are least have made but little advance in this direc- 
tion. Thus, in the North Atlantic division, for every dol- 
lar secured from the State, $5.44 are raised by local tax- 
ation, and in the North Central division, $8.86 are raised 
by local taxation for every dollar obtained from the State. 
On the other hand, in the South Atlantic division only 
$1.52, and in the South Central division $1.07 is gotten 
from local taxes for every dollar received from the State. 
At the same time, the North Atlantic division raises four 
times as much per pupil of school age as does the South 
Atlantic division, and the North Central division about 
the same proportion in advance of the South Central 
division. 

An identical lesson is learned from a comparison of 
the more and less advanced States of the American 
Union, when taken separately. For example, for every 
dollar in Massachusetts derived from State taxation, 
$126. are raised from local taxation, 98 per cent, of its 
school fund being local, whereas in Virginia the State 
and local taxes are about equal. The result is that in 



I04 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Massachusetts $22.37 ^^^ secured for every pupil of 
school age, while Virginia furnishes $3.50 for the same 
class. So, too, in Ohio $6.51 are secured by local tax- 
ation for every dollar from the State, and $13.38 assured 
to every pupil of school age, while in Kentucky only 50 
per cent, of the amount received from the State is se- 
cured from local taxes, and but $4.41 contributed per 
pupil.* 

We need not, however, go outside our own borders to 
learn the same lesson, though, perhaps, in not so striking 
a manner, for the principle of local taxation has been 
applied in some of the cities and towns of Virginia to an 
extent that is gratifying, and to some extent in a few of 
the counties, and with results that may well inspire the 
remainder of the State to higher efforts in this direction. 
Let us take a few of these cities at random and compare 
what is being done by them with the efforts being made 
by the counties and note the dift'erence in results. In the 
city of Danville more than twice as much is raised by 
local taxation as is gotten from the State ; in Richmond 
and Lynchburg more than three times as much, and each 
has a school term of nine or ten months, and every child 
has access to a graded and high school, whereas in Prince 
Edward not more than two-thirds as much is secured by 
local taxation as from the State; in Brunswick not a 
third ; in Amelia and Buchanan a little over a half, Prince 
Edward having a school term of five and a half months, 
Brunswick five and a fourth, Amelia six and a third, and 
Buchanan four and two-thirds months. The counties are 

* The foregoing figures are derived from United States Com- 
missioner of Education. Report, 1902. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 105 

also sadly below the cities in school houses and property, 
the qualification of teachers, libraries, appliances, etc.** 

It seems now to be pretty clearly shown that local tax- 
ation has been the solution of the problem of school im- 
provement, where such advance has been made. It is a 
natural inference that whatever forward steps are to be 
taken in future must be brought about by the same means. 

How, then, is the cause of local taxation to be ad- 
vanced? What means can be employed hopefully to 
arouse interest, so that the people will come to submit 
cheerfully to an increase of their burdens' for the eleva- 
tion of their race? 

1. In reply to this question, I have already stated my 
belief that it will be hard to bring it about so long as 
division superintendents and school trustees are appointed 
as at present. They are too far removed from the people 
and consequently little cordial sympathy exists between 
them and the people. It makes little difference to any one 
whether the Governor, Attorney-General or Superintend- 
ent of Public Instruction is elected by the people, as at 
present, or by the Legislature, as formerly, but it makes 
a world of difference whether local officers are appointed 
by a foreign authority or elected by the people, whom 
they are to serve. 

2. Again, a persistent effort must be inaugurated in 
every county and in every district of every county to in- 
terest the people, individually and collectively, in educa- 
tion, and to incite them to higher endeavor for the wel- 
fare of the young. The school house must be made an 
attractive place, the center of intellectual and social light, 
the meeting ground of neighbors and friends in common 

** These figures have been gotten from the Virginia School 
Report, i902-'03. 



io6 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

interest for the advancement of knowledge and culture. 
In order to this, the schools must be brought more fre- 
quently and prominently to their attention as objects of 
great worth, their work be explained, their needs be made 
known and the community thus be brought into cordial 
sympathy with them. The assistance of the pulpit and 
of public meetings may well be invoked in this behalf. It 
is difficult to get people to submit to sacrifices for things 
about which they know and care nothing, but once im- 
press them with their vital importance and secure their 
personal interest, and the victory is won.' This is not a 
matter of merely individual concern. While a beginning 
must be made with individuals, it must not stop there. 
Each individual must let his influence be felt, that a gen- 
eral awakening may be accomplished and maintained. 
This is, as I understand it, the prime object of "the Co- 
operative Education Commission of Virginia," assembled 
here to-day. It is to enlighten the minds and awaken the 
dormant energies of the people of the Commonwealth 
and its constituent parts in behalf of the Public School 
System, so that there may be good graded schools and at 
least one high school in every county. How necessary 
this is in the matter of local taxation, which lies at the 
basis of all such advance, is illustrated by the following 
authentic facts which have come to my knowledge lately. 
In one of the counties of our State, usually regarded as 
highly favored in some respects, and in the olden time the 
abode of families of wealth, education and social culture, 
not long since the Board of School Trustees agreed to re- 
quest the supervisors to levy a tax of one mill on the 
dollar of property for the special improvement of the 
school-houses, some of which are a reproach to our civil- 
ization. The trustees' wished to ask for two mills, but 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 107 

were dissuaded for fear that they would get nothing, and 
having experience that ''half a loaf is better than no 
bread," adjusted themselves to circumstances and pre- 
ferred the request. One of the supervisors, a man of 
high character and an efficient and liberal minded officer 
in view of the approaching meeting of his board, and 
desiring to inform himself of the views and feehngs of 
the tax-payers' of his district, sent them mdividually a 
written communication, stating in brief, clear angviage 
the facts of the case and asking their opinion m the prem- 
ises When last heard from he had received seventy- 
three replies, eleven of which are favorable and sixty-two 
opposed, some of them violently and uncompromisingly 
to the tax. Among the latter are men of intelligence, of 
considerable means and of large influence. 

Now here are facts-facts that must be admitted, 
reckoned with and provided against, and they indicate 
that the people as a whole are little interested in the pub- 
lic schools, opposed to local taxation and wil ing to let 
what they regard as "well enough alone." They cheer- 
fully take what the State gives them or can be derived 
from sources outside of themselves, but as to making per- 
sonal sacrifices to achieve results, that is out of the ques- 

*'°"Manifestly, if this state of thought and sentiment 
continues to prevail, the outlook is discouraging in the 
extreme. It must be modified, rectified, reversed, or 
thousands and tens of thousands of noble youth, possess- 
ing -rand possibilities, must still be denied opportunity of 
self-'dcvelopment and left in situations from which they 
cannot disentangle themselves, instead, of being helped 
forward to lives of large and distinguished usefulness 
Every interest, civil and social, intellectual and moral, 



loS ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

financial and economical, political and religious' must be 
left to suffer and the old Commonwealth, once so re- 
nowned in the annals of war and the councils of peace, 
be content to struggle on with only a secondary position 
in the galaxy of States and the work of the world. But, 
is this to be? I call on you, Virginians, to answer this 
question ! I call on you, educators, gathered from all 
parts of the State, with your minds enlightened and your 
spirits aglow for the uplifting of your fellow-citizens', to 
make reply ! I call on you, members of the Co-operative 
Education Commission, lately inaugurated for a cam- 
paign against ignorance and deterioration, and in behalf 
of the enlarged intelligence and increased virtue of the 
whole people, to say whether these objects are not grand 
enough, good enough, glorious enough in their achieve- 
ment to inspire the zeal, animate the courage and direct 
the energies of every lover of freedom? 

This is no school-boy task that is before you. It is 
no merely academic problem that you have to solve. It is 
not a transient work to be performed in a day or a year 
or a brief series of years, that you undertake. It is the 
enlightenment and elevation of a large portion of the citi- 
zenship of the State. It is the bringing of them into line 
with the progress, the best thought, the most approved 
methods of the age. It is their conversion from a state 
of ignorance, indifference or hostility to one of friend- 
ship, co-operation and personal endeavor. It is the 
uniting of our people throughout all our borders' in one 
common effort, each to promote the welfare of the other 
and all to conspire for the well-being of each. It is to 
fulfill the Royal Law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself" ; to measure up to the Golden Rule, "As ye would 
that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise." 



THE RELATION OF THE CITIZEN TO THE 
PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

I do not know how better to introduce the subject to 
which I am to ask your attention than by the quota- 
tion of some sentences from Mr. Andrew Carnegie's "Tri- 
umphant Democracy." In speaking of the danger to this 
country from the teeming milHons' of foreign immigrants 
pressing into it, he says : "The generosity, shall I not say 
the incredible generosity, with which the republic has 
dealt with these people, met its reward. They are won 
to her side by being offered for subjectship the boon of 
citizenship. For the denial of equal privileges at home, 
the new land meets them with perfect equality, saying, be 
not only with us, but be of us'. They reach the shores of 
the republic subjects, (insulting word), and she makes 
them citizens ; serfs, and she makes them men, and their 
children she takes gently by the hand and leads to the 
public schools which she has founded for her own chil- 
dren, and gives them without money and without price, a 
good primary education as' the most precious gift she has, 
in her bountiful hand, to bestow upon human beings." 

We of the South are not much concerned, on our own 
account, with the question of foreign immigration. It is 
most largely with our native population, white and negro, 
that we have to deal. The terms of the proposition to be 
treated in our discussion, however, are the same with 
those so clearly and truthfully brought to view in thf"* 
sentences — Citizenship and the Public Schools. 



no ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

One of the chief grounds of gratitude which presents 
itself on this occasion is that we are citizens of the State 
of Virginia, of the United States of America. I have not 
time to exphcate this statement, nor do I regard its expH- 
cation important. The mere recognition of the fact of 
citizenship in one of the oldest and noblest of the Com- 
monwealths of our great republic is enough to awaken 
the profoundest feelings of honorable pride and thanks- 
giving in the heart of him who is heir to this' inestimable 
boon. To be a Roman citizen about the time of the Chris- 
tian era was both an honor and safeguard; to be an 
American citizen in its twentieth century carries with it a 
thousand- fold more of blessing and advantage. 

The people of Virginia — native and naturalized, male 
and female, white and colored, old and young — are its 
citizens. As such they dwell under the aegis of its protec- 
tion, and are assured of the possession and enjoyment of 
their inherent rights. We live under a government "of 
the people, by the people and for the people," "sit every 
man under his own vine and under his own fig-tree" in 
the exercise of our undisputed privileges and are gath- 
ered here to-night in friendly conference to consider 
some questions of importance to ourselves as individuals 
and to the body-politic as' a whole. 

It is one of the prime principles both of moral and 
sociological science, that when men come together in or- 
ganized society, they are bound together by ties of recip- 
rocal obligation. No relation exists in this world which 
does not carry with it corresponding duty. Human life 
is a scene of mutual action and re-action, of giving and 
receiving, of reciprocation. This principle is imbedded 
in our natures, revealed in our every-day activities and 
expressed in the language used in ordinary intercourse. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. iii 

Take, for illustration, a few of the familiar antonyms of 
our mother tongue, and note the instruction they give — 
husband, wife; parent, child; teacher, pupil; seller, 
buyer; master, servant; State, citizen. Each term of 
these couplets appears in a sense to be antithetic, and yet 
each expresses relation and interdependence — no hus- 
band, no wife; no parent, no child; no teacher, no pupil ; 
no seller, no buyer; no master, no servant; no State, no 
citizen, and vice versa. The one cannot exist without the 
other. They co-exist in their existence, and in their co- 
existence there arise obligations from one to the other. 
They are correlatives and from their mutual relations 
emerge duties and responsibilities, important and impera- 
tive, which cannot properly be overlooked or disregarded. 
The State owes the citizen protection, defence, assistance 
in the maintenance, enjoyment and prosecution of his 
rights; the citizen owes the State fealty, loyalty, service 
in its endeavors to promote the progress, well-being and 
happiness of its people. 

How far the State may. go in affording its inhabitants 
assistance is for its qualified citizens to determine by con- 
stitutional provision and legislative enactment. When its 
sphere of action has been settled and it proceeds to per- 
form its functions, by the law of reciprocity it is the duty 
of every citizen to stand by and aid it in its efforts to 
effectuate the objects placed before it. 

The State, then, we see, is a complex unity, with man- 
ifold functions, reaching out in various directions', all 
having the same end in view — to wit: the establishment 
and promotion of the welfare of the people as individuals 
and as an integral whole. 

One thing, committed to the oversight of the State, 
and now generally agreed on as important and indispen- 



112 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

sable to the public well-being, is the education of the 
masses. It has been determined and embodied in the or- 
ganic law, that ignorance is a monstrous' evil, a menace to 
civilization, a bar to prosperity, the parent and fosterer 
of vice, the harbinger of crime, destructive of the rights 
of the people and injurious to the integrity of society and 
of the State itself. It is, also, generally conceded that if 
Virginia is to regain and maintain her ascendency in the 
sisterhood of States and to retake her place in the van- 
guard of civilization, it must be through the educated in- 
telligence of her population. Hence the establishment 
throughout the Commonwealth of a comprehensive sys- 
tem of "public instruction and education," the design of 
which is to give the rudiments of knowledge to every 
child and higher training to all who show themselves able 
and willing to take advantage of these opportunities. The 
Constitution of the State, explicated and enforced by its 
laws, has clearly and irrevocably determined on a broader 
and deeper intellectual and moral culture for all classes 
of her people as essential to their welfare. 

I have thus endeavored to place before you as briefly 
and clearly as may be the principles which underlie the 
solution of the problem — "What is the relation of the cit- 
izen to the public schools?" If my diagnosis and pre- 
sentation of the situation are correct, I think you will 
agree with me, that from every point of view — personal 
and public, social, economic, patriotic, ethical and relig- 
ious — the attitude of the citizen to the public schools' 
ought to be sympathetic and helpful. 

I do not mean by this that every citizen ought to send 
his child to the public schools. There may be good rea- 
sons why he should not do so. This is a free country, and 
if a parent or guardian prefers some other system of in- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 113 

struction for those committed to his care, it is right for 
him to act on his convictions. 

Nor do I assert that the citizen is under obHgation to 
neglect his personal afifairs — his family, his business, his 
church — in order to minister to this important interest. It 
is true that a man's' personal interests are largely depend- 
ent for good or evil on the intelligence of the community 
in which he lives, and it therefore behooves him to give 
what attention he can to this department, but often his 
whole time is necessarily absorbed in the discharge of im- 
perative obligations, and there are those appointed and 
delegated by the State, whose special duty it is to attend 
to the schools, and who are responsible before the law 
and their own consciences for intelligent assiduity in their 
several spheres of employment. 

What I do intend to suggest and to press on your in- 
telligent consideration is, that after these delegated 
agents — the State Board of Education, the State Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction, the Division Superintend- 
ents, the County and District Trustees and the Teach- 
ers — have given full service, there is still a sphere of in- 
fluence and effort which belongs to the citizen, without 
whose aid the schools cannot attain their complete use- 
fulness. There is need of the co-operation and support 
of the community, and of every community, in order to 
the realization of the full benefits' of the system. 

It is the recognition of this fact and the profound 
conviction produced by it, that inspired certain gentlemen, 
interested in and prominently identified with education, 
to unite in the formation of "the Co-operative Education 
Commission of Virginia," the object of which is to arouse 
public sentiment and to secure concert of action on the 
part of the people. 



114 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

This movement is greatly needed. There is still some 
hostility and much apathy throughout the Common- 
wealth. It can only he removed by the diffusion of in- 
telligence and by personal and aggregated influence in 
rall3'ing the people to the help of the State. 

Another interesting question connected with this sub- 
ject is, How can the individual citizen contribute to the 
welfare of the public schools? What can he do to ad- 
vance their interests, increase their usefulness and en- 
large their power for good? What can he bring to the 
common effort? I reply that he can give his sympathy, 
his influence, the inspiration of his example and such 
help as circumstances may permit and justify. 

But individual effort alone will not avail. It is good, 
as far as it goes, but there is need of combination and 
aggregated force. It is, therefore, recommended that 
county, district or communal associations be formed, em- 
bracing in their membership the citizens of a community, 
larger or smaller, with the avowed object of aiding in 
this movement. 

To promote this object a modest leaflet has been is- 
sued and widely distributed with the special design of 
suggesting and encouraging such organizations. It is an 
unpretentious publication, and all the better for that. It 
is just six inches long and three and a half inches broad, 
and yet it is worth many times its' weight in gold. It is 
infused throughout with good, every-day common sense, 
and presents a scheme of effort practicable in its pro- 
posals and methods. It does not call for the flourish of 
trumpets or the beating of drums, the large expenditure 
of money or the great absorption of time, but marks out 
a plan by which busy men and women may come together 
for the performance of a service of inestimable value 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 115 

without detracting from their vitahty, but with accretions 
of force for their ordinary employments. 

( 1 ) The name of the proposed organization is attrac- 
tive, "The Scliool Improvement League of ," and 

sets forth clearly the object in view. While this title is 
single and definite in its significance, it contains three im- 
portant thoughts — (a) It is a league, an alliance, a combi- 
nation. It is a recognition of the old adage, "In union 
there is strength." Its members come together with a 
common purpose and to attain a common end. (b) The 
end in view is the schools, already established by the 
State and fostered by the cities, counties and districts. 
These schools exist, are at work and are generally doing 
some good work. But none of them has attained the 
ideal and many fall far short in many respects. There- 
fore, the (c) controlling thought is their improvement, 
the amendment of their deficiencies ; the infusion of new 
life, and interest and power. 

The formation of one of these leagues, therefore, 
means the creation of a new factor, in addition to those 
provided by law, for the promotion of the welfare of the 
rising generation, and is a tribute to the future. 

(2) The "constitution" proposed for these leagues is 
a model of brevity and simplicity, dealing in a few sen- 
tences with their membership, officers, management, quo- 
rum, executive committee, meetings and amendments. It 
is also proposed that each "league" shall become a con- 
stituent part of the "Co-operative Education Commis- 
sion," and participate in its work, and that the effort shall 
be made to improve every school in the community. 

(3) The "suggestions" of the leaflet, following the 
constitution, are timely and useful, but do not call for 
special remark, and so I pass on to the important point of 



ii6 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

(4) "Aims." These leagues may be formed, but un- 
less inspiring objects claim their attention, they will be in- 
efficient and accomplish nothing. If there is one thing 
which excites the disgust of serious-minded and earnest 
people, it is the show of something while nothing worthy 
is in view — sham — 'whereas, if a high and noble purpose 
is indulged, the object of which is practicable, the warm- 
est impulses of the heart are enlisted. It is, therefore, 
important that those who are interested in school im- 
provement shall seek to know their real condition, their 
defects as well as their excellencies, that being intelli- 
gently informed, means may be found to elevate and ad- 
vance them. It is not suggested that every citizen is com- 
jietent to this task. On the contrary, it is freely conceded 
that many are not, and that here, as everywhere, leaders 
are needed. What is essential is for the men and women 
of earnestness and good, common sense, who, when they 
see a thing, are able to know it, to understand the adapta- 
tion of things to one another, the relation of antecedent 
and consequent, of cause and effect, of means and end ; 
how one thing being brought about, another may be 
secured, to come forward and take part in this great ef- 
fort. The preachers, the doctors, the lawyers, the busi- 
ness men, the mechanics, the farmers, the working peo- 
ple, the women — all who are accustomed to look after the 
every-day affairs of life — must be enlisted with the 
school officials in studying and solving the problem now 
thrust upon us. It is a plain and practical thing that 
demands attention. It is a matter in which every one is 
more or less concerned, whether the interest be recog- 
nized or not. It ought not to be difficult to arouse this 
interest and to rally it to the achievement of the desired 
result. Every man, woman and child in the Common- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 117 

wealth, who will enter on the work with zeal and intelli- 
gence can do something to aid in its accomplishment. 

To me, one of the most valuable and salutary aspects 
presented in the working of these "school improvement 
leagues," especially in the rural districts, is the socializing 
and elevating influence exerted on their membership. 
The churches of all denominations have done, and are 
doing, much in this direction, and I trust and believe that 
they will continue to be increasingly useful in breaking 
down social barriers by the dissemination of intelligence 
and the inculcation of righteousness. In the "school im- 
provement league," however, a new sphere of social ac- 
tivity is opened — not antagonistic, but helpful to the 
churches, broader in its area, more comprehensive in its 
constituency, embracing not only the members and fami- 
lies of one church, but of all the churches, and if there be 
such, of no church, banded together with the noble pur- 
pose of extending and promoting the intellectual ; and as 
a corallary, the moral, social, economic and religious wel- 
fare of the whole community. The school-house thus be- 
comes, in a high and true sense, the centre of communal 
life, the place where the children and youth are taught, 
developed and fitted for active duty in the world, where 
the older people meet together for conference and action 
on these important interests, and, as occasion may sug- 
gest, for social, intellectual or festive enjoyment. I can 
think of nothing more humanizing, elevating and benefi- 
cent in its operation or more promising in its results'. 

And now, as to the specific service that may be ren- 
dered by the individual citizen in connection with the 
"school improvement league," it seems to me that 

(i) One important thing is the establishment of a 
good understanding and concerted action between the 



iiS ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

superintendent and trustees of schools on the one hand 
and the people of the community on the other. There are 
communities where such relations do not exist. It is the 
fault of the officials in some cases and of the people in 
others. Wherever the blame rests, this condition ought 
to be looked into and rectified. Without this, the best in- 
terests of the schools cannot be maintained : with it, there 
is good ground for hope of progress and steady advance. 
Any citizen of firmness and good sense can be of eminent 
service in such a contingency in rectifying wrongs, re- 
moving obstacles and stimulating progress. 

(2) Another thing that may be greatly advanced by 
the effort of patriotic citizens is the development of such 
an estimate of the worth of education and the advantages 
which flow from it that the community will be prevailed 
on to submit to such "local taxation" as may be necessary 
to bring up the schools to the point of efficiency. This 
desideratum has already been attained in some of the 
cities, towns, counties and districts, but few have reached 
the point that needs to be gained, and some steadfastly 
refuse to do anything. Of the opponents, some are men 
of wealth, while others possess' small means. Now, it is 
easy enough to denounce these voters and say it is arrant 
selfishness in the well-to-do citizen and ignorant, short- 
sightedness in the man of straightened circumstances to 
occupy this position, but we will never make converts by 
such a course. What is needed under these conditions is 
a campaign of education, the diffusion of information, 
the display of rational considerations, the awakening of 
thought, the presentation of true and noble motives' to 
action. One of the severest indictments ever brought by 
the Almighty against his ancient people is, "Israel doth 
not know : my people doth not consider." One of the 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 119 

most refreshing and uplifting sentences in the Old Testa- 
ment is, "A book of remembrance was opened before him 
(God) for them that feared the Lord and thought upon 
his name." The grand distinguishing characteristic of 
man is the power of thought. The original meaning of 
the word "man," in the old sanskirt, is "to think." Man 
is by his constitution a thinker. "Reason," says a late 
writer, "is the guide of the soul." All our other powers 
are dependent on it for direction. When a man thinks 
accurately and correctly and acts on his thinking, he ful- 
fills' the object of his being. When he fails to think, he 
sins against his own nature and against God. Wonderful 
words are these of the immortal dramatist : 

"What a piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! 
How infinite in faculty; in form and moving, how ex- 
press and admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! in 
apprehension, how like a god !" 

The Psalmist, nearly three thousand years before 
Shakespeare, speaks' to the same effect, "Thou hast made 
him (man) a little lower than the angels and hast crowned 
him with glory and honor." 

All that is great and glorious in human achievement 
is the result of thought embodied in action. 

And yet how often do we find men with little intel- 
lectual development, no power of consecutive thought, re- 
fusing to look at more than one side of a question, bound 
down by narrow prejudice, "cribbed, cabinned and con- 
fined" within the compass of selfish feeling. But when 
you come to know them, they are often 'well-meaning 
men, just in their dealings and kindly in their expres- 
sions. They do a neighbor a favor or a friend a service, 
if it does not cost too much. They are amenable to rea- 
son, when they can be gotten to listen to it. 



120 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

What such men need is to have the light turned in on 
them ; to be brought to see things as they are and not as 
they conceive them to be; to have the scope of their 
vision broadened, to be awakened to reflection, to have 
high and holy motives set before them, and thus to be led, 
kindly and persuasively, to change their position and to 
become factors for good in the community, instead of an 
incubus on its progress. 

I am persuaded that a great work can be done along 
this line by the members of the School Improvement 
League, individually and in co-operation, and that in 
communities where such effort is needed, one of the chief 
objects of the association ought to be, to convert oppo- 
nents and arouse the listless. We need to present a united 
front and to bring the combined influence of the people to 
bear in behalf of school improvement and the uplifting of 
the rising generation. One of the most difficult things with 
which we have to grapple in many communities is to gain 
the consent of the tax-payers to "local-taxation." Until 
this is done, little advance can be made. When it has 
been accomplished, progress will be assured, although 
there may be much else that requires attention. Let the 
thinking men and women of the Commonwealth go for- 
ward, undaunted in the good work, and the victory will 
be won. 

(3) Other important objects to which the School Im- 
provement League may well give attention are the con- 
solidation of schools, longer school terms, competent 
teachers, better school-houses, the beautifying of school 
rooms and the grounds around them ; the introduction of 
manual labor teaching, school libraries, etc. I have time 
only to suggest these matters for your consideration. 
They are all important and ought to be looked after. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 121 

I beg now to express the profound conviction that the 
future of our grand old Commonwealth is largely de- 
pendent on the movement we are met here to-night to 
foster and promote. We have come to the parting of the 
ways. You will not regard me as disloyal when I say 
that Virginia of to-day does not occupy the relative posi- 
tion in the galaxy of States once accorded her by univer- 
sal consent. Other Commonwealths have outstripped her 
in population, in wealth, in manufactures, in agriculture, 
in commerce, in the development of natural resources, in 
political prestige, in moral force and influence, and, be- 
yond all, and in part at least, explanatory of all, in educa- 
tion. 

While it is true that our State University and other 
institutions of higher learning, male and female, are do- 
ing a noble work, and that some of our public schools of 
all grades, from the primary to the high school, are meet- 
ing the requirements of their position under the condi- 
tions' that surround them, it is also true that a burden of 
ignorance rests on the State that is at once appalling and 
destructive. More than one-fifth of our population over 
ten years of age are illiterates. According to the latest 
published statistics from our State Board of Education, 
it appears that forty-six per cent, (nearly one-half) of 
the children and youth of school age do not attend school, 
and that of the whites, forty per cent, are non-attendants. 
Of those who go to school, nine-tenths' drop out before 
they reach the high school. Many of our school houses 
are wholly unfit for the culture and elevation of beings 
endowed with immortal minds. Many of our teachers, 
while doing the best they can with their equipment, have 
had no opportunity to prepare themselves for the work 
in which they are engaged. 



122 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

This condition of things does not exist exclusively in 
any one section of the State, but more or less' in all parts. 
Is it to continue or shall it be rectified? If improvement 
is to be brought about, how is it to be accomplished? The 
provisions of our State Constitution are adequate. Our 
laws are what they should be, or, if not, they can be made 
so at the next session of the Legislature. We have a full 
corps of school officials' and have had them for many 
years. And yet something is lacking, and that something 
is the cheerful, hearty, persistent interest and concur- 
rence of the rank and file of our citizenshij). The work 
rests, my friends, on you and me. Let us and our fellow- 
citizens throughout our borders be true to our vocation, 
and the old State will arise and resume her place among 
the advanced forces of our civilization. 

One more thought and I am done : You have heard 
the preachers of all denominations, and not only the 
preachers, but the officers and members of all the 
churches, say that religion is the principal thing which 
lies back of progress ; that Christianity is the indispen- 
sable factor in the regeneration of mankind, and that in 
order to bring about the abatement of vice, the growth of 
virtue, the purification and elevation of society and the 
greatness of a people, there must be the adoption and 
practice of the principles inculcated in the Bible. You 
have heard them speak thus. I have heard them. I have 
spoken this way myself, and I am not here to-night to 
recant my well-settled convictions, or to contravert the 
intelligent opinions of my brethren, but I want to ask 
each one of you, and all of you together, whether you 
have not heard and do you not believe it to be true, that 
''education is the handmaid of religion," that educated, 
enlightened people are more apt to be moral, useful and 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 123 

Christian than ignorant and untaught people; that one 
great demand of Christianity is that those who embrace 
it shall be lights in the world and helpers of others in 
their development and preparation for usefulness? These 
things belong to the very rudiments of thought and the 
religious life, and it seems to me, lay a heavy responsibil- 
ity on each and every one of us, and specially on those 
who profess and call themselves Christians, to rally to the 
standard now erected in behalf of a broader and deeper 
education for the children and youth, of the enlighten- 
ment of the masses' of our people and of a higher, nobler, 
purer and more affective and effective civilization among 
all classes of our citizens. Virginia will then become a 
beacon-light to the land, to the world and to posterity. 



THE FAMILY AND THE SCHOOL. 

I appear before you, brethren, as a substitute for the 
brother on whom this duty was originally devolved, 
other important engagements demanding his attention at 
this time. The subject assigned me, "The Family and 
the School," is complex, though its elements stand closely 
related and interdependent. Each is or ought to be of 
deep significance to every thoughtful mind. Indeed, I can 
think of nothing, after an abiding concern for our per- 
sonal relation to Christ and the unremitted exemplifica- 
tion of his teaching, that deserves, and ought to receive, 
more of our thought and effort. 

I regret that the subject allotted is so large and the 
time allowed for its discussion so brief, that my remarks 
must necessarily be fragmentary and somewhat discon- 
nected. Nevertheless, it may be, that I shall be able, by 
the blessing of God, to focus your attention on some of 
its prominent features, so that your relations and obliga- 
tions to these fundamental institutions shall be more fully 
realized and your lives be enriched and made more fruit- 
ful than heretofore. If so, I shall thank God and take 
courage. The word "family" or "families" is found many 
scores of times in the Old Testament scriptures, and gen- 
erally in the sense in which we receive it, and but once in 
the New Testament, and then with a larger meaning than 
that in which we shall treat it. The word "school" does 
not occur in the Old, and only once in the New Testa- 
ment, and then with a significance not relative to our sub- 
ject. A discussion of these scriptural terms would not 
be materially helpful, as we accept and shall treat them. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 125 

as they are already understood and used in popular inter- 
course. 

A well-known and trustworthy contemporary, Dr. 
Carroll D.Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor, 
has described the family as "a crucial social unit," "the 
keystone of society," for it results, from that happy asso- 
ciation of the sexes by which the human species is per- 
petuated and extended, by which the affections are de- 
veloped, and by which the interest which compels one 
unit to preserve and cherish another, is fostered. 

Another distinguished author, Dr. Noah K. Davis,* of 
the University of Virginia, in treating of the family, says, 
"The relations are generally sufficient for the unfolding 
of the domestic virtues, the building of character and the 
enjoyment of home life. . . By its primacy it stands 
as the unit of society and the State." 

Another writer of world-wide reputation, the late Dr. 
Henry Calderwood, of the University of Edinburg, 
speaking from a higher standpoint and in a yet loftier 
strain, says : "As the family is the primary unit in society, 
moral law applies directly within its constitution in a 
manner analogous to that in which moral law applies 
within personal life. Governing and working power be- 
long to it as to the individual life and the play of feeling, 
affection and emotion, belongs to it as a unity, in closest 
analogy with all that is characteristic of a single life. The 
relations of husband and wife, parents and children, 
brothers and sisters, constitute a true unity, in the moral 
significance of which it becomes apparent how strong and 
how great is this central though smallest type of the 
social organization. This unity belongs to the very struc- 
ture of nature, which we seek to account for when we 



126 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

raise the all-embracing problem of the universe as a 
whole. 

"The unity of the family is founded on biological and 
ethical laws conjointly, for both apply throughout family 
life just as in individual life. Here lies the provision for 
order, purity, government and harmonious activity. In 
constitution of the family, the marriage bond is presup- 
posed as the essential condition of social life, and this 
constitution is sustained by recognized application of 
moral law equally to both sexes. The obligation to phy- 
sical, intellectual and moral purity is the same for all, and 
family life becomes the watchful guardian of social 
purity. The law of purity applies to man as to woman — 
to woman as to man — with no trace in reason for making 
the slightest difference in our judgments'. There is noth- 
ing more clearly destitute of moral or rational warrant 
than the opinion which would distribute on a different 
scale the condemnation of social vice. 

"All the relative duties of the social life grow from the 
applications of universal law to the relations existing in 
accordance with the bonds which nature has ordained. 
The fact that moral law bears equally on all is the se- 
curity for a sustained unity. Thus, if moral relations be 
studied as represented in family life, it will be seen how 
difficulties are to be met, and how increased strength and 
vitality of social life are to be secured, by special recogni- 
tion of the duties and inalienable rights of each personal- 
ity, taken with the claims which these give on others. For 
it is when we look steadfastly at those difficulties which 
spring from the entire dependence of the young on paren- 
tal authority (or on authority regarded as its equivalent) 
that we see how dependence and independence are to be 
harmonized. It is because parents are subject to moral 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 127 

law exactly as children are, that, we find provision for 
defence of the weak, not merely in the affections, but in 
the duties of the strong. Moral law thus carries a guide 
to all organization on a more extended scale, which must 
be in large degree voluntary, and must involve the rival 
claims of the weak and the strong. In every family the 
father and mother have in their own hands the applica- 
tion of the principles concerned in the government of 
communities and nations. There is no more striking ex- 
ample of dependence than appears in the life of children, 
and there is no case in which the acknowledgment of per- 
sonal rights seems more difficult, as a duty to be persist- 
ently fulfilled. It is comparatively easy to insist on abso- 
lute submission, but it is a quite serious difficulty in the 
circumstances, to make full account of the claims of per- 
sonality, testifying without stint to the reality that moral 
law controls those in authority as well as those who arc 
subject." 

I have chosen to give you the fundamental principles 
which underlie and explain the structure, functions and 
obligations of the family as the teaching of approved 
scientists and thinkers rather than in my own language : 
(i) Because I feel sure this method will convey more 
briefly and lucidly the important thoughts thus' presented, 
and (2) because the authority of men of accredited intel- 
lectual power and discrimination carries along with their 
utterance a force, valuable and useful in itself, in addi- 
tion to the instruction they impart. You have in the para- 
graphs just quoted the highest results of scientific investi- 
gations and philosophic thought. The principles an- 
nounced appeal to your candid consideration and impar- 
tial judgment. If they are true, they ought to be accepted, 
adopted and lived up to. 



128 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Are they not true ? Let us see. I ask every one pres- 
ent to follow me with close attention, to give heed to the 
voice of your own consciousness that you may discover 
for yourselves whether the truths now set before you are 
not immediately, directly and intuitively given and 
whether you are not bound to receive them as absolute 
truth about which there is no doubt. I ask, then, is it not 
true that the family, such as those to which you and I 
belong, is' "the crucial social unit," "the keystone of so- 
ciety," the fundamental "unit of society and the State"? 
In other words, can there be any society or State without 
families out of which they proceed, and is not the char- 
acter of society and the State dependent on the character 
of the families that compose them for the complexion 
they take? If family life is marked by purity, temper- 
ance, justice and benevolence, will not social life be 
radiant with these virtues and will not the citizens of the 
State carry into their dealings with one another, and with 
the State itself the attributes of kindness, integrity, truth 
and the observance of obligation? In fine, are not fami- 
lies like little fountains from which issue rivulets, some 
sweet, some bitter, which coalesce and form the great 
stream of social, civic and political life? 

Again, is it not true that the family as the primary 
unit in society is amenable to moral law ; that every mem- 
ber of the household, whether husband or wife, parent or 
child, brother or sister, is' equally bound by it; that its 
observance or non-observance determines the character 
of the family life for good or evil ; that as every member 
has rights, so each owes correlative duties, and that under 
these conditions, the family is the place for the unfolding 
of domestic virtues, the building of character and the 
enjoyment of home-life"? 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 129 

It seems to me that these are self-evident truths, and 
beyond the pale of contradiction. If so, then from every 
point of view — national, social, political, patriotic and 
philanthropic — we ought to cherish and purify and elevate 
our home life, make it the scene of our dearest joys and 
purest happiness, and protect it, so far as in us lies, from 
the intrusion of every sordid, impure and corrupting 
thought and influence. 

It may be said in deprecation that the argument now 
adduced proceeds wholly from a temporal point of view, 
appealing wholly to the humanitarian side of life and 
overlooks the aspirations of the soul after a higher and 
better — even an eternal life. 

To this objection, I reply that in a sense the criticism 
is just, but that if the domestic circle is such a sacred 
place, when the demands of our earthly life alone are 
considered, it ought to be guarded and cultured and im- 
proved with constant assiduity and endeavor by men of 
every creed and of no creed ; much more does it behoove 
those who acknowledge "one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism, one God and father of all" ; who bow down before 
the one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ with adoring 
gratitude, and look up to the Holy Spirit of promise by 
whom they are sealed to the day of redemption, to give 
heed to these truths and adjust their lives in accord 
therewith. 

I beg also to suggest that the moral law, of which we 
have been speaking, found as a human characteristic in 
every clime and every age, is the law of God ; that it re- 
sides' and presides in every human breast, written there, 
according to the teaching of the great apostle, by God 
himself ; that its mandates coincide with those of the law 
given on Sinai, and that it is a sin against our own nature 



130 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

and against Almighty God to do anything which docs not 
measure up to this standard or to fail to do anything in 
accord therewith, so far as it is in our power to do it. It 
is our duty, as the professed disciples of Christ, not only 
to obey the explicit commands of God's Holy Word, but 
to give heed to the monitions of conscience, and in every- 
thing under all circumstances to do that which is right 
and true and good and to put behind us every false and 
deceitful thing. And applying this principle to our family 
life, we cannot fail to see that there rests on us an imper- 
ative obligation to consecrate it to the service of God and 
to make the most of it, not only for the good of society 
and the State, but in view of those eternal interests, 
which are involved in all others, but which transcend all 
others in grandeur and worth as the heavens are high 
above the earth. 

Did time permit, 1 should be glad to say something as 
to the duty and privilege of aiding to bring the happiness, 
comfort and elevating influence of home life into families 
now destitute of its joys, but I must content myself with 
this bare reference, leaving the matter to your prayerful 
consideration, while I pass on to speak a little while about 
"the school," including the private and the public school, 
the primary, grammar and high school grades, the acad- 
emy, the college and the university, where children and 
youth are taught and trained, and where they are pre- 
pared by studied methods and varying stages for the 
duties and avocations of life. 

I do not think it is claiming too much to say that next 
to the family and the church, and it must not be forgotten 
that the family is, or ought to be, an integral part of the 
church, the most important factor in forming the char- 
acter and training the young for JiigJi and noble useful- 
ness is the school. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 131 

It has been truthfully and beautifully said that "edu- 
cation commences at the mother's knee, and every word 
spoken within the hearsay of little children tends to the 
formation of character," but it cannot and ought not to 
end there. It ought to be progressive and as extensive 
as conditions admit. 

Dr. Carroll D. Wright, already quoted, says : "Educa- 
tion is a mark of civilization. Wherever in the history of 
the world tribes, communities. States or nations have 
made any advance, they have provided in some way for 
the education of either a part or the whole of the popula- 
tion." The desirableness — may I not say the necessity — 
of this is better understood to-day than ever before, so 
that in most civilized countries provision is made to some 
extent for the education of the masses of the people, and 
in many to a large extent. The United States is not be- 
hind any other country in its efforts in this direction. 
According to the report of the United States Commis- 
sioner of Education for 1899-1900, there were 22,253,050 
persons of school age. Of these, 15,341,230 were enrolled 
in public schools, exclusive of kindergartens, colleges and 
universities. 

"The percentage of the population enrolled in public 
and other schools is higher in the United States than in 
any other country of the world. The percentage is 23.3." 

According to the Virginia school report for the year 
i902-'3, there were 8,965 schools opened within the 
bounds of the Commonwealth, with an enrollment of 
375,601 pupils. In the city of Richmond there were 2^2 
schools opened, with a school population of 24,937, o^ 
whom 12,203 ^vere enrolled in the public schools. 

I give you these statistics, the magnitude of which 
may well arrest your attention, but cannot dwell on them 



132 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

for the want of time. They indicate that much is being 
done, and that much more needs to be done, and, above 
all, they appeal to the patriotism of every citizen and the 
religious sentiment of every Christian. Are these schools 
what they ought to be? They are powerful agencies for 
good or evil. What kind of education are they giving? 
What kind of influence are they exerting? Are the teach- 
ers professionally competent? What is their moral atti- 
tude and example? Are the surroundings of the pupils 
sanitary, refining, elevating, inspiring? What improve- 
ments can be made, promotive of the physical, intellect- 
ual, moral and religious welfare of the young ])eople? 
What can be done to get the thousands who forsake the 
schools to attend them? Whose duty is it to look after 
these things? 

I think I hear you say, The school officials and teach- 
ers have these matters in charge and on them the respon- 
sibility rests, and you say truly, But it is also true that 
the school officials and teachers can do little without the 
sympathy, co-operation and support of the people. There 
is something, therefore, for every good citizen — male and 
female — and specially for every good Christian to do in 
the improvement and upbuilding and utilization of the 
schools of the land in furthering the interests of society, 
in conserving the purity and integrity of family life 
through their influence on the children, in bringing out 
into the world men and women of high moral character, 
prepared to grapple with its problems, to do its work, to 
stand courageously for what is true and right, and in 
their turn to lend a helping hand to the progressive ad- 
vancement of coming generations. 

Next in importance to the exercise of simple faith in 
the Lord Jesub' Christ, and the consecration of all we 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 133 

have and are to his service, I do not know of any sphere 
of activity in which we may do more for the glory of God 
and the upbuilding of his' church in the world than by 
constant and persistent effort to hallow and exalt family 
life and to make the schools of our land fountains of in- 
tellectual, moral and spiritual power. 

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso- 
ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, what- 
soever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, 
whatsoever things are of good report : if there be any 
virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things ;" 
let them adorn your lives, give them effect in your homes, 
let them irradicate your intercourse with your fellowmen, 
bring them to bear, so far as you can, on the children and 
youth of the land and the world, and "the God of peace 
shall be with you," for in blessing others, you yourselves 
shall be blessed. 



MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

IN preparing a sketch of the distinguished gentle- 
man, whom I am to present to you, I have had ac- 
cess to six or eight of the latest European and American 
encyclopaedias and to his biography, written by his 
daughter, Mrs Diana Fontaine Maury Corbin, aided by 
his nephew. General Dabney H. Maury, C. S. A. From 
the former, I have been able to ascertain not a single fact 
or incident except in the most meagre form. The latter, 
so far as I am able to learn, contains the only authentic 
account of his life, and while it is far from being all w^e 
could wish, either in fullness or completeness, it contains 
much valuable information, and is an interesting and valu- 
able book. My plan has been to go through this work with 
care, selecting pivotal incidents and events, as far as prac- 
cable, in chronological order and clothed very largely in 
the language of the author. In this way I am able to give 
you a more interesting account of the man and to set him 
before you more in his true and simple greatness, than if 
I allowed myself larger latitude. 

In the galaxy of her distinguished sons, whom intelli- 
gent Virginians delight to honor, Matthew Fontaine 
Maury stands in the front rank. He was of Huguenot 
ancestry through the Maurys and Fontaines, who arrived 
in \'irginia in 1714. On his mothers side he was a de- 
scendant of Dudas Alinor, who received a land grant 
from Charles H. in 1665. No more honored, patriotic 
and useful citizens have dwelt in our Commonwealth 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 135 

than those belonging to these famiHes, the members of 
which are now widely scattered throughout the United 
States. 

In 1790, Richard Maury, father of our hero, married 
Diana, daughter of Major John Minor, of CaroHne 
county, and settled in Spottsylvania county, where their 
fourth son, the subject of this sketch, was born in 1806. 
When Matthew was in his fifth year his father emigrated 
with his family and settled in middle Tennessee, about 
eighteen miles north of Nashville, where the boy assisted 
his father and brothers in farm work. He was brought 
up to work, to obey and to regular religious observance. 
He obtained elementary education in the old-field schools 
of that period and region, and having fallen from a high 
tree when in his twelfth year and been so injured that his 
father thought he would never be fit for farm labor, he 
was allowed to enter Harpeth Academy nearby, where he 
became a diligent and successful student. 

His brother, John Minor Maury, entered the navy as 
midshipman at the age of thirteen, and after most stir- 
ring adventures, rose to be first lieutenant of a frigate 
and flag captain of a fleet. He died of yellow fever at 
sea, leaving two sons, one of whom became Major-Gen- 
eral Dabncy Herndon Maury, C. S. A. 

In 1825, Hon. Sam Houston, then member of Con- 
gress from Tennessee, obtained for M. F. Maury a mid- 
shipman's' warrant in the navy. His father, however, 
having lost one son at sea, did not approve his acceptance 
of this position, and refused his consent, his assistance 
and even his parting blessing. Nevertheless, Matthew 
determined to enter this profession, and with a horse pur- 
chased on credit, and with thirty dollars, paid him as as- 
sistant in a school, he started on his journey, reaching his 
relatives in Virginia with fifty cents in his' pocket. 



136 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

His biographer mentions three incidents of interest 
connected with this trip : ( i ) Arrived among his Minor 
kin in Albemarle, a special entertainment was accorded 
him. When the ice cream was handed him first as the 
honored guest, having never seen any before, he aston- 
ished the negro waiter and tried the good manners of the 
company by transferring a teaspoonful of the unknown 
sauce to his own plate and sending on the rest. (2) While 
at his uncle's house in Fredericksburg, he met for the first 
time his little cousin, Ann Herndon, twelve or thirteen 
years old, to whom he was married nine years later in 
1834. (3) At Fredericksburg, he sold his horse for the 
price he agreed to pay for him, and immediately for- 
warded the money to the gentleman in Tennessee from 
whom he was purchased. 

At the period of Maury's entering the navy (1825) 
there was no naval academy, and the young midshipman 
had to acquire his nautical education on shipboard. Bear- 
ing on this state of things, T will be pardoned for giving 
a brief account of my only personal contact with this re- 
markable man. It occurred at the close of the session of 
i853-'4 at the University of Virginia, when he made the 
annual commencement address to the students. I remem- 
ber well his appearance, his massive brow, his kindly ex- 
pression, his gentle manner, his impressive bearing, and 
I recall his opening words, not given in the extract 
printed in his biography. They were somewhat as fol- 
lows: "Young gentlemen, it is' the custom in the navy, 
when a young man enters as midshipman, for him to seek 
the guidance and assistance of some older and more ex- 
perienced seaman to help him acquire the knowledge 
necessary to enable him to fill the important position to 
which he aspires, and as you are about to leave your 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 137 

alma mater and venture on the voyage of life, I have 
come, having gained some experience of the sea, to give 
you some simple sailing directions, which may help you 
the better to prepare to meet the breakers and to shun the 
rocks and quicksands which beset your path." He then 
went on in a most instructive way to draw from his per- 
sonal experience important lessons which I am sure have 
been of much practical value to many who heard him. I 
find on reading his life, that his address was' a transcript 
from his personal mode of action, when fitting himself 
for the great duties he afterwards performed. His biog- 
rapher says, that after he entered the navy, it soon be- 
came evident that he had resolved to master the theory 
and practice of his profession, and was steadily pursuing 
that object, regardless of difficulties and obstacles. Active 
and observant, he merited and obtained a reputation for 
strict attention to the various details of duty and conse- 
quently was often selected for special service. 

During the first year of his' service, he visited the 
coast of England on the frigate Brandywine, which con- 
veyed the Marquis de la Fayette to France, by whom he 
was kindly noticed. On his return to the United States 
he was transferred to the "Vincennes," which was fortu- 
nate in that his accommodations were much better and 
more favorable to study, so that at the end of the voyage, 
he was able to stand and pass his examinations', though 
not at all distinguished in them. 

In 183 1, six years after he entered the navy, he was 
appointed master of the sloop-of-war "Falmouth,"' 
ordered to the Pacific coast, in which he had a room to 
himself and pursued his studies with ardor. He had the 
Bible and Shakespeare at his' fingers' end and made him- 
self master of much other good literature Tt was on the 



138 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

voyage to Rio de Janeiro, en route to the Pacific, that he 
conceived the idea of the celebrated "Wind and current 
charts," which have done so much for commerce and 
made his name famous throughout the world. Before 
leaving New York he had searched for reliable informa- 
tion about winds and currents, but obtained none. It was 
also on this voyage that he observed and studied the phe- 
nomena of "the low barometer" off Cape Horn, and 
wrote his first scientific paper for publication, which 
afterwards appeared in the American Journal of Science. 
He also began at this time to prepare a work on "Naviga- 
tion," the material of which he had been gathering for 
some time. From the "Falmouth" he was transferred to 
the schooner "Dolphin," on which he performed the 
duties of first lieutenant, until he joined the frigate 
"Potomac," in which he returned to the United States in 
1834, when he married, as heretofore stated, his fee to 
the minister being the last ten dollars he possessed. Soon 
after marriage, he put his work on "Navigation" to press. 
After the appearance of this volume, he Avas assigned to 
duty in making surveys of southern harbors. After being 
engaged thus for more than a year he obtained a few 
weeks leave of absence to visit his parents in Tennessee, 
whom he wished to bring with him to reside with his 
family in Virginia. On his' way back, having given his 
seat on the inside to a poor woman, who could not stand 
the exposure of the cold air at night, he was thrown from 
the top of the stage coach and seriously injured. This 
accident injuriously affected his prospects in the navy, 
but soon after his return to Fredericksburg a series of 
anonymous articles' from his ])en on nautical subjects, en- 
titled "Scraps from the Lucky Bag," having appeared in 
TJie Southern Literary Messenger (Richmond) and their 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 139 

authorship having become known, great attention was 
awakened not only by the discussions, but in regard to 
their author. So deep was the impression that the 
National Intelligencer (Washington) and other journals 
urged his appointment as Secretary of the Navy. 

In these papers he urged the adoption of "steam as a 
motive power in navigation," and proclaimed "a new era 
in naval warfare," that of big guns and small ships. He 
also in the same year (1839) called attention to "the 
great sailing circle" as a means of shortening the distance 
between Europe and America. He also wrote on "Direct 
Trade in Southern Bottoms," and advised that "a navy- 
yard and fort" should be established at Memphis' and 
Pensacola." In 1843, he wrote a further article on 
"building a dock and navy-yard and school of instruc- 
tion" at Memphis, which was done, and for which he de- 
serves credit. In June of the same year, he read a paper 
on "The Use of Blank Charts on Board of Public Cruis- 
ers" before the National Institute, and in July before the 
"President and Corps Diplomatique" ; a much-talked of 
paper, entitled "The Gulf Stream and Its Causes." In 
another "Scrap," he urged the establishment of forts, 
arsenals and a ship canal from Illinois river to Lake 
Michigan to connect with Memphis navy-yard and to 
transport ships to and fro in time of war." When it be- 
came known that Maury was the author of the "Scraps 
from the Lucky Bag," his ability was universally ac- 
knowledged and he was put in charge of the "Depot of 
Charts and Instruments," which he developed into "the 
National Observatory and Llydrographical Department 
of the United States." 

When Maury distributed his "charts and sailing direc- 
tions," they were not much regarded at first, but Captain 



I40 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Jackson, of Baltimore, having followed them in a voyage 
from the United States to Rio, he made the voyage out 
and back in the time often consumed in the outward voy- 
age alone. An active interest was now excited in all 
parts of the world, and he gained intelligent and zealous 
friends and assistants everywhere. To show the accuracy 
and benificence of Maury's work, the case of two ships 
which left New York abreast and reached San Fran- 
cisco the same day is cited. The fame of his "wind and 
current charts and sailing directions" rang round the 
world. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine of May, 1854, esti- 
mates the annual saving to the commerce of the United 
States on the outer voyage to be at least $2,250,000, not 
estimating the return trip or the saving in wreckage of 
vessels' and human lives. 

The value of this system having been demonstrated, 
the sympathy and assistance of European nations were 
now invoked and readily accorded. Secretary Dobbin, of 
the navy, gave it as his conviction in a letter to Senator 
Mallory, that "this officer (Maury) has not only added 
to the honor of his country, but saved millions of dollars 
to his' countrymen." It was while analyzing and tabu- 
lating millions of observations, that Maury wrote "The 
Physical Geography of the Sea and Its Meteorology," 
which Humboldt pronounced "one of the most charming 
and instructive books in the English language." Upwards 
of twenty editions of this book were sold in England, to 
say nothing of America and the continent, and it was 
translated into French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and 
Italian. In T853. "a congress' of nations," chiefly inter- 
ested in commerce — England, Russia, Belgium, France, 
Holland, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Portugal and 
the United States (with Maury as representative) asseni- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 141 

bled at Brussels for the further development of meteor- 
ological research, applicable to land as to the sea. In 
1857, Baron Von Humboldt, at the age of ninety, wrote 
Maury: "It belongs to me more than to any other travel- 
ler of the age to congratulate my illustrious friend upon 
the course he has' so gloriously opened." In 1880, Senator 
Vest, of Missouri, said in a speech before the Forty-sixth 
Congress of the United States : "The whole signal service 
of this country originated with the navy, not with the 
army. The man who commenced it, in whose brain it 
first had existence, was M. F. Maury. . . This same 
man by his system of research upon the ocean . . . 
saved to the commerce of the world from $40,000,000 to 
$60,000,000 annually." The Weather Bureau system of 
this and other countries proceeded from his brain, though 
he has received no credit for it. 

It was Maury, also, who instituted deep-sea sound- 
ings, who prophesied the existence of a telegraphic pla- 
teau at the bottom of the sea between America and 
Europe ; who discovered and suggested the place for the 
Atlantic cable and the kind and size of wire to be used. 

At a dinner in New York to celebrate the arrival of 
the first message across the Atlantic, when called on to 
give an account of the work, Dr. Cyrus W. Field arose 
and said : "I am a man of few words : Maury furnished 
the brains, England the money and I did the work." Yet 
these services were unrequitted and are, to a considerable 
extent, unknown. Admiral Fitz Roy, an eminent savant 
of the British navy, said of him, "One of his most distin- 
guished characteristics was disinterestedness. . . His 
sole object was to benefit mankind at large." 

I must take a moment to call attention to the most un- 
gracious act of a naval retiring board appointed by au- 



142 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

thority of Congress to retire inefficient naval officers. It 
was simply a recommendation that M. F. Maury, along 
with others, be dropped from the list. Equally marvellous 
is the fact that the recommendation was adopted, and 
Maury found himself shivering out in the cold. The 
country was indignant and the press throughout its length 
and breadth rose up, almost as one man, and demanded 
not only his reinstatement, but his promotion. 1 am sorr^^ 
to say that Senators Davis of Mississippi and Mallory of 
Florida (one afterwards President of the Confederate 
States and the other his Secretary of the Navy) were, 
apparently, both before and during the war, opposed to 
Maury. Nevertheless the will of the people prevailed 
over narrow-mindedness, and Maury was restored and 
promoted. 

About this time he received an autograph letter from 
the Grand Duke Constantine, commander-in-chief of the 
Russian navy, in which the following sentences occur: "I 
must confine myself to the expression of my sentiments. 
They are as exalted as are your own merits ; and in my 
official capacity, I may say to you that you do honor to 
the profession to which you belong, as well as to the 
great nation which you have the honor to serve." 

Maury continued to write on a great variety of sub- 
jects, "Light-Houses on the Florida and Gulf Coasts," 
"Systematic Observations on the Rise and Fall of the 
Mississippi River," "The Defence of the Lakes and the 
West," "Drowned Lands Along the Mississippi," "Steam 
Navigation to China," "A Ship Canal and Railroad 
Across the Isthmus to the Pacific," "On the Commercial 
Prospects of the South," "On the Valley of the Amazon," 
"Our relations' with England," etc., all of which have 
borne fruit, though some of them tardily. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 143 

About this time, his "chart" was published, "with two 
lanes laid down, each twenty-five miles broad, for the use 
of steamers in going and returning across the Atlantic, so 
that they might avoid collision." In speaking of this dis- 
covery, the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and Gazette 
said: "We agree with Professor De Bow's view, that 
Lieutenant Maury is certainly entitled to the rank of one 
of the greatest benefactors of the age." The London 
Times, at a later date, speaking of the loss of the "Ville 
du Harve," remarked, "If she had followed Maury's 
steam lanes, this terrible loss of ship and life would have 
been avoided." So impressed were the merchants and un- 
derwriters of New York with their value that they pre- 
sented him $5,000 and a handsome silver service. 

Maury was a stout man, about five feet six inches in 
height; he had a fresh, ruddy complexion and clear ten- 
der blue eyes. In later life, he was quite bald. His coun- 
tenance bespoke intellect, kindliness and force of charac- 
ter. In manners he was most affable and courteous : in 
conversation, he was always evolving great ideas — as Mr. 
Calhoun said of him : "He was a man of great thoughts." 
He made loving companions of his children, invited their 
confidence and freely gave them his. Yet his word was 
law, and that no one ever dreamed of disputing. His 
dear wife — his "darling Annie" — was the idol of his 
heart. Like few great men, he was greater the closer one 
got to him. He never had a study or anything like a sanc- 
tum, where his wife and children could not come. He sat 
in the midst of his family, with papers spread out before 
him, unconscious of what was going on. He taught his 
children at the breakfast table and for an hour or two 
after. Their mother taught their Bible lesson and cate- 
chism and the girls had regular tasks in mending and 



144 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

darning. The family could attend only Sunday morning 
service because of the distance between their home and 
church, but Maury conducted evening service at home, 
which was read verse about, "the stranger that was 
within the gates" generally taking part. 

One of the most remarkable productions of this re- 
markable man is a letter, published in the Southern 
Churchman, in the year 1855, on the relation of '"the 
Bible and Science," in which he exhibits not only intimate 
knowledge of the text, but most intelligent comprehen- 
sion of its meaning. He was a devout believer in the 
authenticity and inspiration of the sacred scriptures. In 
i860 he delivered the address at the laying of the corner- 
stone of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tenn., 
in which the following sentences occur: "Physical geog- 
raphy makes the whole world kin. Of all the depart- 
ments in the domains of physical science, it is the most 
christianizing. . . Astronomy ignores the existence of 
man: physical geography confesses that existence and is 
based on the Bible doctrine that the earth was made for 
man." "Upon no other theory can it be studied : upon no 
other theory can its phenomena be reconciled ! . . I 
have been blamed by men of science . . . for quoting 
the Bible in confirmation of the doctrines of physical 
geography. The Bible, they say, was not written for 
scientific purposes, and is, therefore, of no authority in 
matters of science. I beg pardon. The Bible is authority 
for everything it touches. . . When I, a pioneer in 
one department of this beautiful science, discover the 
truths of revelation and the truths of science reflecting 
light on one another, how can I, as a truth-loving, knowl- 
edge-seeking man, fail to point out the beauty and rejoice 
in the discovery." 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 145 

In the year 1858, Lieutenant Maury delivered an ex- 
tensive series of lectures in cities of the North and West 
on "The Atlantic Telegraph," "The Highways and By- 
ways of the Sea," "A System of Meteorological Observa- 
tions'," "The Workshops and Harmonies of the Sea," etc. 
Of these lectures, the Cleveland (O.) Plaindealcr says: 
"They have all the thrilling interest of romance, all the 
charming simplicity of narrative, and yet the grandest 
and most sublime principles of science are grappled with 
and discussed with the erudition and ability of a master 
mind." 

But now the prospect of a great calamity was darken- 
ing the land. Maury made earnest efiforts' to avert war, 
maintain peace and insure to the South her equal rights 
in the Union. He addressed earnest appeals to the Gov- 
ernors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Dela- 
ware to stand in the breach and stop this fratricidal strife. 
It was too late. President Lincoln called on Virginia for 
troops to subjugate the seceding States. Virginia replied 
by casting her lot with her seceding sisters. Maury re- 
signed and took his stand with his native State. No 
sooner was his resignation known in Europe than most 
flattering offers from Russia and France were conveyed 
to him in Richmond by the Russian and French ministers, 
accompanied by the Prussian Envoy, who came, they 
said, "to pay their respects and make their adieus to the 
philosopher and man of science, who had given up all, 
everything he had save honor, at the call of his native 
State in her trouble." 

Maury, while gratefully appreciating and acknowledg- 
ing these honorable proffers, as graciously declined them, 
because his allegiance and service belonged to Virginia. 

In writing to a friend about this' time, he says : "The 



146 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

President refuses to accept my resignation. The object 
of this will be plain enough to you. But in such a case, 
the halter has no more terror than the bullet. Death is 
death. Our cause is just." 

On the loth day of June, 1861, Maury was appointed 
by the Confederate Government chief of the Seascoast, 
Harbor and River defences of the South. In his post he 
assisted in fitting out the "Virginia" for her short, but 
destructive career. He also invented a formidable tor- 
pedo to be used both for harbor and land defence, besides 
contributing in other ways to the protection of the South- 
ern seaboard. Torpedo warfare was reintroduced to the 
world by our Civil War, and it was the practical mind 
of Maury which appreciated its power and developed its 
efficiency. In the summer of 1862, after overcoming 
many difficulties, Maury proceeded to mine the James 
river below its fortifications, and it was this that saved 
Richmond from capture at a much earlier date. 

While engaged in this work, without having been con- 
sulted and strongly against his wishes, he received an 
order to go to Europe to purchase torpedo material, a 
duty that might have been performed by any junior offi- 
cer. It is probable that we here again see the hand of 
President Davis and his Secretary of the Navy, and there 
can be no doubt that the loss to the Confederacy by his 
removal was irreparable and, may be, fatal. 

The first and second years of the war Maury wrote a 
series of papers, published in the Richmond Enquirer, 
urging the government to build a navy without delay and 
showed that it was practicable. 

In October, 1862, he sailed from Charleston, S. C, 
and arrived safelv in England, where he remained during 
the war. While there he assisted in organizing a society 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 147 

"for the promotion of the cessation of hostiHties in Amer- 
ica," and "a petition for peace in America" was sent by 
"the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
Ireland" to "the people of the United States," but it ac- 
complished nothing. "The great American Hydrogra- 
pher," however, met with much sympathy and kindness. 
His valuable labors and books had secured him a host 
of friends. During his stay in England he spent his time 
in perfecting his discoveries and in the conduct of experi- 
ments connected with torpedo warfare. 

On May 2, 1865, under orders from the Secretary of 
the Navy of the Confederate States, he sailed from 
Southampton, and on arrival at St. Thomas, West Indies, 
received the crushing intelligence of the fall of the Con- 
federacy and the murder of President Lincoln. He now 
felt it to be his duty to follow the fortunes of his stricken 
State, and determined to surrender his sword, which he 
did to the United States officer commanding the Gulf 
squadron," accompanied with a letter, the first paragraph 
of which is as follows : "In peace as in war, I follow the 
fortunes of my old native State, Virginia. I read in the 
public prints that she has practically confessed defeat and 
laid down her arms. In that act, mine were grounded 
also." He was strenuously advised not to return to the 
United States, as "vengeance against the leaders" was 
openly proclaimed. Mr. Charles Francis Adams, at that 
time United States Minister to England, said to a friend 
of Maury's, "All his friends should advise him not to go 
back to the United States yet. The feeling there is bitter 
against him, and I believe that a step of that kind on his 
part at this time would be unfortunate for him." 

Maury was' left at Havana without a country or a 
home, and far from friends whom he could consult. He 



148 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

had always felt a warm regard for the Archduke Maxi- 
milian, and when that unfortunate prince undertook the 
regeneration of Mexico, Maury offered his services and 
arrived in Mexico in June, 1865. He was welcomed by 
the Emperor and Empress, and was offered a place in the 
ministry, which he declined, but accepted the position of 
"Director of the Imperial Observatory." 

Maury now formed a grand scheme for the coloniza- 
tion of a New Virginia in Mexico, which was cordially 
adopted by the Emperor, who appointed him "Imperial 
Commissioner for Colonization," and concurred with him 
in measures to make the plan effective. 

The course pursued by Maury in entering the service 
of Mexico did not receive the approval of his friends 
either in Europe or America. Commodore Jansen, of the 
Netherlands Navy, General R. E. Lee and others wrote, 
dissuading him from the enterprise. He, however, 
thought that he was right, and, from indications, would 
perhaps, have done much for the upbuilding of Mexico, 
but for the unhappy and prohibitive state of things w^hich 
existed. 

Maury now got leave of absence to join his' family in 
England and not long after his arrival received the fol- 
lowing letter from Maximilian : 
"My Dear Councillor Maury : 

"It was with pride that I heard of the scientific tri- 
umph just achieved and due to your illustrious labors. 
The trans-Atlantic cable, while uniting both hemispheres, 
will continualy recall to their minds the debt of gratitude 
they owe your genius. I congratulate you with all my 
heart, and I am pleased at announcing to you that I have 
appointed you Grand Cross of the Order of Guadaloupe. 

"Receive the assurance of the good wishes of your af- 
fectionate, "Maximilian." 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 149 

It was not long after this that the tragic death of 
Maximihan was announced to the world. 

The Emperor of Russia made Maury "Knight of the 
Order of St. Ann" ; the King of Denmark "Knight of 
Dannebrog" ; the King of Portugal "Knight of the Tower 
and Sword"; the King of Belgium "Knight of the Order 
of St. Leopold" ; the Emperor of France "Commander of 
the Legion of Honor," while Prussia, Austria, Sweden, 
Holland, Bremen and France struck gold medals in his 
honor. The Pope also forwarded a complete set of all 
the medals which had been struck during his pontificate, 
as a mark of his appreciation of Maury's service in the 
cause of science. His services were also recognized by 
numerous learned societies at home and abroad. 

Maury lost all his property in the States, and the fail- 
ure of a bank caused him the further loss of all the 
money brought from Mexico. Soon after his arrival in 
England, however, "a Maury testimonial," promoted by 
his friends', Commodore Jansen and Rev. Dr. Tremlett, 
consisting of three thousand guineas in a silver casket, 
was presented to him at a banquet presided over by Sir 
John Parkington, First Lord of the Admiralty, surround- 
ed by representatives of nearly all European governments 
and distinguished officers of their armies and navies'. 
General Beauregard, C. S. A., was also present. 

Maury now set to work with his electrical torpedo, 
and was in Paris for a time, where he was employed by 
the government of Napoleon HL The french authorities 
were delighted. At St. Cloud, the Emperor himself made 
the circuit and exploded a torpedo, and Maury was in- 
vited to become a Frenchman and accept service under 
Napoleon. 

On his return to London, he opened a school of in- 



150 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

struction in electric torpedoes, which was attended by 
Swedish, Dutch and other officers. For this work, he was 
amply remunerated by the governments whose officers 
were under his instruction. He was also fully occupied 
in the preparation of a series of geographical text-books. 

Although Alaury had always been a devout Christian, 
it was not until this year (1867) that he became a regular 
member of the church. He was confirmed by Bishop 
Quintard, of Tennessee, then in London, at Dr. Trem- 
lett's church, in Belsize Park. 

In 1868, the degree of LL. D. was conferred on him 
by Cambridge University, in recognition of his literary 
and scientific merits, and of his eminent services to man- 
kind. Alfred Tennyson and Max Miiller received the de- 
gree at the same time. This same year, the political ob- 
jections to Maury's return to the United States were re- 
moved by the proclamation of general amnesty. He had 
been offered the "Directorship of the Imperial Observa- 
tory" by the Emperor of the French, and the superintend- 
ency of the University of the South at Sewanec, but he 
declined both. He had accepted the Chair of Physics at 
the Virginia Military Institute, arrived in the United 
States in July, 1868, and was duly installed in his profes- 
sorship the following September, but his residence not be- 
ing ready for occupancy, he did not enter on his duties 
till the next year. He, then, set himself busily to work in 
the instruction of his classes along lines which had inter- 
ested him during his whole life. He was invited to make 
addresses in Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Massachu- 
setts and Missouri. In May and October, 1871, he de- 
livered a notable address on "The Development of the 
Agricultural Bureau at Washington," as a means of help- 
ing the farmers and increasing the wealth of the country, 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 151 

which called forth enthusiastic action, invoking the 
United States Government to grant these reforms and im- 
provements. At the National Agricultural Congress at 
St. Louis in 1872, he strongly urged the importance of ,m 
"international conference" between the leading agricul- 
turists and meteorologists of all countries. 

His health gave way under the fatigue and exposure 
of this last trip and about the middle of October, he re- 
turned home. As he crossed the threshold, he exclaimed 
to his wife, "My dear, I am come home to die !" After 
four months of patient suffering, borne with pious resig- 
nation, he entered into rest, February i, 1873, his last 
words being "All's well." 

His life was a consecrated one — consecrated to God. 
to duty and to the promotion of the welfare of mankind. 
He was wholly unselfish. He was at once a patriot and a 
philanthropist ; a man of the highest personal honor and 
of unimpeachable integrity. His distinguishing mental 
characteristics from his youth were the power of clovi 
observation, chastened imagination and careful generali- 
zation from observed facts. On his early cruises as a 
midshipman, he saw things and saw them in their relation 
to other things, and drew conclusions from what he saw, 
as no other mariner from the days of Noah had seen and 
concluded. He was a man not only of intellect, but of un- 
daunted courage and perennial industry. By day and by 
night he was' at work ; at work for no selfish end, but for 
the betterment of mankind. His motive in life was to do 
somebody — everybody — good. His was a world-wide 
beneficence. Beginning at home, he was a loving and 
gracious husband, a kind and solicitous father, a loyal 
son and brother. He was an humble, sincere and devout 
Christian, taking the Bible as his standard and conscience. 



152 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

enlightened by truth, as his guide. Having enjoyed nar- 
row educational advantages in youth, as a scientist and 
literateur he became the peer of the most learned savants 
of his time, and far outstripped the vast majority of the 
highly educated men of the world. He was a man of gen- 
ius — of that kind of genius alone worth having, which, 
when it sees a thing, takes hold of it, masters it and turns 
it to account. No man has done more for his country and 
the world. Few have accomplished anything like so much. 
His name is known and honored wherever civilization ex- 
tends. He is recognized as one of the great benefactors 
of mankind. His mortal remains rest in Hollywood, the 
cemetery of your sister city near by. 

When I think of this remarkable man, sans pcur ct 
sans rcproche, giving his life for the welfare, and confer- 
ring benefits of untold magnitude and unending duration, 
on his country and the world, treated with ingratitude 
and malevolence, I thank God that there is an assize In 
the future, at which wrongs will be righted and even- 
handed justice accorded to all. 



PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention, Ladies 
and Gentlemen: 

I remember distinctly that when I was quite a youth 
I heard in my native city of Petersburg, on the oc- 
casion of the death of a distinguished and highly honored 
citizen of the United States, a thrilling discourse by an 
eloquent minister of the Gospel, based on the text, "Ceaso 
ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, for wherein 
is he to be accounted of." 

A world-renowned preacher, when called to declare 
the will of God to man before the court of France, as he 
rose in the pulpit of Notre Dame and looked around on 
royalty in all its' blazonry of splendor, and the nobility of 
the kingdom, its lords and ladies, and pomp and circum- 
stance, stretched out before him in glory and magnifi- 
cence, paused and seemed lost in contemplation, and then 
began a discourse which has survived the lapse of time, 
with the impressive words, "There is nothing great but 
God: there is nothing terrible, but judgment." 

As we are gathered here to-day at a time when men 
are usually engaged in secular work; as this convention 
has interrupted its ordinary course of proceedings and by 
resolution is assembled for religious worship ; as through- 
out our common country our fellow-citizens have for- 
saken their accustomed avocations and betaken them- 
selves to the house of God in recognition of a common 
sorrow and in obeisance to the Lord of Lords and the 
King of Kings, it behooves us to bow humbly and revcr- 



154 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

ently before His throne and acknowledge Him Lord 
of all. 

Perhaps never in the history of mankind has there 
been more heart-felt and universal grief than during the 
past days preceding and following the death of the hon- 
ored and beloved Chief Magistrate of the Republic. All 
parties, all creeds, all peoples throughout Christendom ; 
the potentates of earth in common with those who fill 
humble positions in society; all, with the exception oi a 
few enemies of mankind, sit together under the shadow 
of a common grief and cry out to God for help. 

To me this fact has great significance. Not only does 
it bear witness impressively, as nothing else could do, to 
the noble character and exalted worth and illustrious .ser- 
vice of our lamented dead, but over and above and be- 
yond this, it implies that deep down in the constitution of 
the human soul there are noble and generous instincts 
that on occasion rise superior to minor differences of 
opinion, break asunder the shackles of sect and party, and 
assert the existence within us. amid all the weakness and 
sinfulness of our nature, of the Divine spark of justice 
and truth and right which has not been wholly extin- 
guished. 

We learn from classic history that the people of Rome 
were wrought up to the point of frenzied enthusiasm 
when an impassioned orator stood before them and cried 
out in their hearing, "Homo sums ct humani nihil a mc 
alicniim piito" ("I am a man and I deem nothing pertain- 
ing to man foreign to me") ; and so to-day we find our- 
selves in common with our fellow-citizens throughout 
this broad land and our fellow-men throughout the world, 
laying our tribute of reverential homage on the bier of 
our departed chieftain, acknowledging his virtues and 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. i55 

holding him up as an example of all that is' good and 
great in American citizenship and in human nature. 

Gentlemen of the Convention, this is well, but it is not 
all, and does not express the full significance of this occa- 
sion. If, assembled here, we content ourselves with mag- 
nifying the dead, however justly and truthfully, and fad 
to gather lessons of wisdom and grace from his life of 
consecration, and his death of faith and hope, we have 
missed the crowning lesson of the sad event which has 
brought us together, and are engaged in a heathen rather 
than a Christian service. 

There are, Gentlemen of the Convention, some trite 
and commonplace instructions to be drawn from the mo- 
mentous crisis through which we are passing, and the cir- 
cumstances which have brought it about, which I should 
fail in duty did I omit to call your attention, and the neg- 
lect of which would leave you without the benefit which 
ought to be derived from this solemn service. It is true 
that these lessons are not infrequently impressed in our 
experience of life from other sources, but seldom, per- 
haps, so forcefully and imperiously as at present. We do 
well, therefore, to consider carefully and lay to heart to- 
day the warnings, the admonitions, the instructions which 
are tided in upon us this sad hour. 

Bear with me, Mr. President and gentlemen, as I 
stand here not merely as one of your number, permitted 
to voice your feelings on this great occasion, but also as a 
minister of Christ, whose duty it is to speak the truth in 
His name, to draw from the Providential dispensation 
which rests upon us, and present, as best I can, some sim- 
ple lessons, in simple language, for our common instruc- 
tion and use. Ah, it will be a sad thing if a single one of 
us passes through these scenes untaught and unblessed. 



156 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Let us, then, one and all, give solemn heed to the voice of 
God as he speaks to us to-day and, having heard, let us 
determine that by His gracious help, we will live up to the 
teachings He gives. 

Perhaps the most obvious and universally accepted 
lesson which has been borne in on our minds by the sad 
series of events through which we have passed is one that 
has already been alluded to, the uncertainty of life — a 
lesson learned, indeed, from many other sources, but, 
alas ! how sadly neglected ! We know that man is born to 
die ; we know that death may meet us anywhere and at 
any time, and yet how prone we are to put the thought 
away from us and to go heedlessly on in reckless indiffer- 
ence to the future. Men deem all men mortal but them- 
selves. To-day God speaks to us with a voice loud as 
the thunder of the skies and impressive as the grave and 
eternity, and says : "Go to now, ye that say, to-day or to- 
morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a 
year, and buy and sell, and get gain ; whereas ye know 
not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? 
It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time and 
then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the 
Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that." Our be- 
loved chieftain, who a few days ago was in the fulness 
of manly vigor, with the prospect of prolonged and hon- 
ored usefulness, now lies in the cold embrace of death, 
and from his voiceless tenement of clay comes the mes- 
sage: "Prepare to meet thy God." "Let every day be 
spent in His fear and His service." 

Another lesson which comes' to us to-day from the life 
and death of our lamented President is that we ought to 
cultivate and cherish a spirit of broad charity and hu- 
manity, of kindness and forbearance towards our fellow- 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 157 

men, a disposition to accord to our fellow-citizens of 
every degree what rightfully belongs to them, while at the 
same time we strenuously assert and maintain our own 
rights, inherited and justly acquired. If there is an in- 
struction which comes to us from the life and death of 
William McKinley, the honest man, the exalted patriot, 
the illustrious chieftain, it is this. 

It is not contended that at the beginning or during the 
earlier part of his political career he had reached t^;'is 
high altitude. Exalted character is not the creation of a 
day, nor is it produced by leaps and bounds, but it is of 
gradual formation under the inspiration of noble prin- 
ciples and high ideals'. It presupposes and involves man- 
ful struggle, thoughtful effort, voluntary self-sacrifice, 
large-heartedness and absolute truthfulness. You cannot 
have character without that. Its acquisition is slow and 
gradual, and after conquest upon conquest only is finally 
complete, and when complete its possessor stands before 
the world the noblest work of God, the ideal of humanity 
— the only perfect exemplar of which is our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the Son of Mary, the Son of God. And perhaps 
at the time of his death he whom we honor to-day had 
approached as near this point as any living man. 

It is told of Alexander the Great that when he was 
about to enter on the conquest of the East, the Philoso- 
pher, Aristotle, the instructor of his youth, made bold to 
advise him to crush out the alien nations that lay in his 
path, but to treat with leniency the Greek peoples with 
whom he should meet; to which the conqueror, wiser 
than his teacher, made the noble response : "It is not my 
mission to crush and to destroy, but to unite and reconcile 
the nations of the earth." 

Such seems to have been the spirit of our departed 



158 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

hero in private life and in the administration of the 
affairs of his country, and under this' patriotic and Chris- 
tian poHcy he did much to bring all parts of our hitherto 
disunited country to the indulgence of mutual respect and 
into bonds of cordial fraternity. 

Shall his generous example be lost? Shall we not 
cherish and honor it, and in our private and public rela- 
tions endeavor to come up to this high ideal ? It was the 
great Justinian who gave to the world the following defi- 
nition of justice: "Jusfitia est constaiis ct pcrpcHia volun- 
tas cuiquc siium tribuendi" ("Justice is the constant and 
perpetual good-will to give to every man what belongs to 
him"). Hundreds of years before Justinian, an inspired 
prophet, speaking in the name of God, had said, "He hath 
shewed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the 
Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy 
and to walk humbly with thy God?" Thus we have 
this day brought to our ears and impressed on our hearts 
the same important lesson from four very diverse 
sources — from the life and death of one of the noblest 
of Americans ; from the gracious though ephemeral out- 
burst of the conqueror of the world ; from the pen of a 
renowned Roman jurist, and from the everlasting Word 
of the everlasting God. Oh, let not the appeal be without 
effect on your hearts and lives. 

The only other lesson which I shall venture to bring 
to your attention is found in the answer to the inquiry, 
What was the basic principle on which, as a foundation 
of adamant, the reverent and upright character of Wil- 
liam McKinley rested? What is the adequate explanation 
of his inflexible justice, his broad-minded charity, his un- 
deviating adherence to what he thought right, his pure- 
heartedncss and devout patriotism? What was' it that 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. i59 

made him the man that he was, that in Hfe won for him 
the affectionate regard and confidence of those who knew 
him, and that at his death sent coursing throughout our 
greJt repubHc and all around the world, along with the 
thrill of horror at the dastardly act which laid him low, 
an unbroken wave of deepest distress, w^hich filled all 
hearts with sadness and all eyes with tears? Has' such a 
spectacle ever been beheld before in the history of the 
world ? Explain it ! Make reply to your own souls ! 

To me the answer is evident. I have not far to go to 
find a satisfying explanation of what he was while living, 
and of what he is to his countrymen and mankind, now 
that he is dead. ''He that dwelleth in the secret place of 
the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty." He drew the inspiration of his life from con- 
verse with the throne of Heaven. He was an avowed and 
honest believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. He accepted 
the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the 
guide of his life. Their doctrines were the sheet anchor 
of his soul ; their commandments were a lamp to his feet. 
He could say with the Psalmist, "The Lord is my light 
and my salvation ; whom shall I fear ? The Lord is the 
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" The 
teachings and example of Jesus were the rule of his con- 
duct, and walking in the ways of truth and holiness, he 
went by degrees from strength to strength, growing in 
grace and in the knowledge of his God and Saviour ; and 
in the practice of what he saw to be true and right and 
Sfood, he became the man that he was, the ruler that he 
Avas — the saint that he is. 

But he has gone from us. While we are engaged in 
this service, the last sad tribute of respect is being paid 



i6o ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

to his mortal remains as they are being consigned to the 
tomb by his kinspeople and friends. "Earth to earth, dust 
to dust, ashes to ashes." But, oh, what a precious thought 
that "to be absent from the body is to be present with the 
Lord," for says the seer, "And I heard a voice from 
heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead which 
die in the Lord from henceforth ; yea, saith the spirit, 
that they may rest from their labors and their works do 
follow them." 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention, in 
bringing these desultory remarks to a close, how can I 
better repay the genial kindness that I have received at 
your hands since we have been assembled here, than by 
indulging and expressing the fervent wish and hope that 
every one of us may possess like precious faith with Wil- 
liam McKinley, and that by the aid of heavenly grace, we 
may be enabled to fill the several spheres' of activity 
allotted to us so wisely and well, that when the summons 
comes to join the ranks of the innumerable departed, each 
shall enjoy the confidence and regard of his fellowmen, 
and hear the welcome plaudit, "Well done, good and 
faithful servant," 



SUFFRAGE. 

Mr. Chairman: 

WHILE I feel sure that the views I am about to 
present will meet with a cordial response from 
many members of the convention and from the great 
mass of intelligent citizens of Virginia, I fear they may 
arouse the antagonism of gentlemen who have already 
declared themselves hostile to the enactment of principles 
which I regard essential to the welfare of society and fun- 
damental to the moral, educational and economic progress 
of the Commonwealth. 

I desire, therefore, at the beginning of my remarks, to 
assure those who differ with me that the views I enter- 
tain have been arrived at after large observation, careful 
investigation, and prolonged and profound thought, and 
to invoke their candid, patient and thoughtful attention 
to what I have to say. 

I shall endeavor to be entirely impersonal, and to treat 
each question discussed with absolute fairness. If I err 
in either respect, it will be from oversight, and not with 
design. I have no object in appearing before you but the 
ascertainment and enforcement of truth, and to aid in the 
wise and just settlement of the suffrage question. 

I do not stand here. Mr. Chairman, as a theorist, but 
as a man of practical affairs, who has had large dealings 
with his fellow-men. and who looks with a keen eye at 
conditions as they actually exist, and with an earnest 
desire to see them improved. 



i62 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

It will readily be granted by every member of the con- 
vention that the purpose which has brought us together is 
to frame a constitution adapted to the needs of the peo- 
ple of Virginia — an instrument which, when completed 
and adopted as the organic law of the Commonwealth, 
shall embody those seminal principles which are fitted in 
their effective application to promote the welfare of every 
dweller within our bounds, and to restore and perpetuate 
the honor and glory of the old State. 

It will also, doubtless, be conceded, that in order to 
attain this high object, it is necessary to study the real 
conditions existing ; not in any one locality to the exclu- 
sion of others'; not merely with reference to one interest 
without regard to others; not with a narrow and sec- 
tional intent, but with a broad, enlightened and patriotic 
spirit, infused and dominated by an intense and supreme 
desire for the rehabilitation of our lost fortunes, the re- 
establishment of our ancient renown, and the placing of 
the old Commonwealth on an enduring foundation of vir- 
tue, intelligence and economic strength. 

Let me recall your attention, Mr. Chairman and gen- 
tlemen, to the fact that we are here to legislate in the in- 
terests of nearly two millions of people, about two-thirds 
of whom are of Anglo-Saxon lineage, the remnant being 
of African descent ; that while, with inconsiderable ex- 
ceptions, they are natives of the soil they inhabit and in- 
heritors in common of an honorable history, they differ 
widely in many respects — some dwelling by the waters of 
the sea, and others in mountain fastnesses ; some inhabit- 
ing cities and towns, and others' the rural districts ; some 
following agricultural, others pastoral, others mechanical, 
others mercantile, others professional pursuits, while a 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 163 

large portion of the population live by daily bodily toil. 
Some are educated and intelligent, others are ignorant 
and stupid; some are cultured and refined, others are 
brutal and immoral ; some are well-to-do, a few wealthy, 
others are poor, and the majority possess but small means. 

Here, then, we have briefly and imperfectly the prob- 
lem given us for solution. We are to legislate for all 
these classes, and to meet all these conditions, in such 
manner that every citizen, of whatever locality or circum- 
stance, may not only receive even-handed justice, but find 
in the organic law of his State and the civic and political 
arrangements emanating therefrom, incentive and inspi- 
ration to elevate his character, enlarge his' view of life, 
and improve his economic and social status. Any lower 
apprehension of the work before us is fatally defective, 
and destructive of the great end to be attained. Keeping 
steadily in view these high and noble objects in the con- 
struction of every portion of the instrument we are now 
framing, we will present to the people of Virginia a con- 
stitution adapted to their needs, and v/hich, in its opera- 
tion, will prove a benediction to all parts of the Common- 
wealth. 

It will readily be gathered from what has' now been 
said that I do not stand here as an advocate of any par- 
ticular section, or of any sectional restrictive measures in 
regard to suffrage. Restriction in suffrage is demanded — 
imperatively demanded — by the exigencies of the situa- 
tion in the Southside, from which T come, but no less in 
Tidewater and the Piedmont region and the Valley and 
the Southwest and Northern Virginia. The need is uni- 
versal, not only in the country, but in the cities and 
towns ; not only among the blacks, but among the whites, 



i64 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

in order to deliver the State from the burden of illiteracy 
and poverty and crime, which rests on it as a deadening 
pall, sapping its energies, corrupting the sources of politi- 
cal and social vitality, and lowering it in the eyes of its 
own people no less than in the view of those who are 
without. 

Since the assembling of this convention, it has been 
acknowledged again and again by gentlemen from differ- 
ent sections of the State that politics in Virginia are cor- 
rupt ; that there is a large purchasable element, especially 
in the white sections; that voters arc bought and sold; 
and that generally there is no assurance that the will of 
the electors is truly expressed by the election returns. In 
the contested election case lately ventilated before this 
convention you have an object lesson of how things are 
not infrequently managed, not only in this, but in other 
sections of the Commonwealth. I am informed that in 
the Ninth Congressional District there has hardly been a 
national election in twenty years in which large fraud has 
not been charged. The same thing is perhaps true, or 
nearly so, in the Second District, the Ninth being in the 
extreme western and the Second in the extreme Eastern 
portion of the State, and each to a greater or less extent 
representing the condition of things throughout the Com- 
monwealth. The black belt has no monopoly of wicked- 
ness — political, social or civic — but it prevails more or 
less throughout our borders ; and this being true, the 
remedy to be applied must be adapted to meet conditions 
and bring about a cure wherever the evil is found. 

Let us make a more elaborate and thorough diagnosis 
of the existing state of things, that, understanding the 
disease, we may know how to adapt remedial agencies. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 165 

I suppose that there is scarcely a member of this con- 
vention who is not glad that it holds its sittings' in our 
beautiful capital, the city of Richmond, of which we are 
justly proud; and as we meet its citizens and are wel- 
comed into their hospitable homes, and sit with them in 
their houses of worship, and visit their schools and col- 
leges, and see what a great work is being done in educa- 
tion and charity, we are fain to exclaim: "Surely this is 
the abode of virtue, of intelligence, of religion" ; and so it 
is, seen from the point of view most obvious to us ; but 
let it be noted that Richmond, in common with other 
cities, has another and a darker side ; not only a horde 
of ignorant and corrupt negroes, but no inconsiderable 
mass of depraved and vicious whites. Go down into the 
lower parts of the city, and you will behold a different 
spectacle from that which greets our eyes in our usual 
perambulations, for there you will behold not a few speci- 
mens of our white fellow-citizens that will awaken at 
once your pity and disgust. It is this element which con- 
stitutes a menace to society, which, under the manipula- 
tion of corrupt political leaders, constitutes the balance of 
power in elections, and by which the voice of intelligent 
and upright citizens' is stifled at the polls, and incompe- 
tent and bad men are put into office. It is not the negro 
vote which works the harm, for the negroes are generally 
Republicans, but it is the depraved and incompetent men 
of our own race, who have nothing at stake in govern- 
ment, and who are used by designing politicians to accom- 
plish their purposes, irrespective of the welfare of the 
community. No one, therefore, is surprised to learn that 
at least one department of the city government is in an 
equivocal position ; that certain of its' officials have been 



i66 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

accused in the public prints of receiving bribes, and that 
some of its thoughtful and leading citizens are unwilling 
to trust its people with the poor privilege of electing their 
own magistrates. 

But Richmond is not alone in this condemnation. The 
state of things in Norfolk is said to be even and far 
worse, so that the city is now, and has been for years, 
dominated by a political ring or rings, which have con- 
tributed to the lawlessness and violence of the population 
to an intolerable degree. I do not wonder that the gentle- 
man from that city (Mr. Thorn) cries out with protracted 
utterance and in piteous tones for help, while I think that 
he makes a capital and destructive blunder in supposing 
that the elimination of the negro vote will bring relief, lie 
is aiming to heal the hurt of the daughter of his people 
slightly, for there is a mass of vicious and incapable 
whites, which must be debarred from suffrage before it 
will be possible for a better state of things to exist. What 
is true in this respect of Richmond and Norfolk doubtless 
finds its counterpart in other cities. If the consensus of 
opinion of delegates on this floor from cities of the first 
class were gathered, it would probably be unanimous in 
support of this view. 

Soon after my election to the position which I hold 
among you, I received a letter from a friend — one of my 
old pupils — now a prominent lawyer in one of our moun- 
tain counties, who wrote in substance as follows : 

"We have, in county an ignorant and vicious' 

white element in our population, which is as destructive 
of purity in politics, and as injurious to good government, 
as the negroes are in your section of the State." 

I was not unprepared for this specific information, 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 167 

having for the past twenty years spent a portion of every 
summer in this region, not at its health resorts', but among 
the people of its towns and counties; my personal obser- 
vation coinciding with and confirming the testimony of 
my correspondent. Moreover, coming nearer home, and 
referring to statements made on this floor, before our 
committees and in private conference, the conclusion is 
inevitable that in some of these counties there is a degree 
of poverty, illiteracy and lawlessness among whites which 
must be reckoned with and provided against if our or- 
ganic law in its construction and administration is to pro- 
mote and maintain the dignity of the Commonwealth and 
to accomplish the welfare of its people. We must prepare 
a constitution equal and just in its provisions, impartial in 
its application, and which shall be effective not only in 
curtailing the evils we deplore, but in enlarging the intelli- 
gence, the virtue, the prosperity, and the happiness of all 

the people. 

In my honest judgment, the bete noire which has con- 
fronted this convention from the day on which it assem- 
bled up to the present hour, which has palsied its energies' 
and made it comparatively inefficient for the purposes 
which called it together, is the contention that it is our 
duty, as far as possible, to disfranchise every negro, and, 
at all hazards, to enfranchise every white man in the 
Commonwealth. This untenable proposition was evi- 
dently adopted as a truism by the Suffrage Committee of 
this convention, was made the basis of its conferences, 
and is the probable explanation of the unsatisfactory and 
divergent schemes proposed for adoption. Gentlemen 
have been trying to do what, in the nature of the case and 
under the Constitution of the United States, cannot be 



i68 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

done without fraud; and which, if the inhibition of the 
Constitution did not prevail, ought not, under existing 
conditions, to be attempted. This question of suffrage is 
broader and more far-reaching than the mere matter of 
curtaiUng the negro vote, imminent and imperative as 
that is. It concerns the honor, the welfare, the integrity 
of the State as a whole, and must be dealt with as such. 

I beg now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, to ask your 
attention to some specific facts, gathered not from per- 
sonal observation or from authentic rumor, or from oral 
testimony, but based on authoritative statistical reports', 
compiled by State officials, most of which arc in the hands 
of every member of this convention, in support of my 
contention that in order to subserve the interests of the 
Commonwealth and to place its people on a basis of sub- 
stantial and enduring prosperity, conditions must be met 
and provided for in no single section of the State, but as 
they exist throughout its borders. In order to show this 
conclusively and beyond contradiction, I have selected for 
comparison the Ninth Congressional District as a typical 
white district, and the Fourth Congressional District as 
a typical negro district. I propose to give you facts and 
figures, and let them answer the question whether some 
common, efTective remedy is not needed for both, to cure 
the evils found in each. 

I find the following facts, germane to this subject, in 
regard to the Ninth District : 

( 1 ) There are more than nine times as many white as 
negro voters. 

(2) There are 4.6 white voters who can read and 
write for one who canot read and write. 

(3) There are 2.1 negro voters who can read and 
write for one who cannot read and write. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 169 

(4) There are 4.2 voters of both races who can read 
and write for one who cannot read and write. 

(5) There was one felony for the year 1900 for every 

105 voters. 

(6) Taxes are paid at the rate of $2.62 for every 

voter. 

(7) DeHnquent taxes are due at the rate of 44 cents 

for every voter. 

(8) Allowance for jurors paid by the State was 19.3 
for every voter. 

(9) Received into the penitentiary, 106; or one in 
every 489 voters. 

(10) Criminal expenses were $38,482.77, or 74 cents 
for every voter. 

Corresponding facts for the Fourth District are as 
follows : 

(i) There are about 1-6 less white than colored 
voters— that is, for every 83-100 of a white voter there is 
a negro voter; or, for every 830 white voters there are 
1,000 negro voters. 

(2) There are 10.8 white voters who can read and 
write for one who cannot read and write. 

(3) There are 1.6 negro voters who can read and 
write for one who cannot read and write. 

(4) There are 2.7 voters of both races who can read 
and write for one who cannot read and write. 

(5) There was i felony case in 1900 for every 268 
voters. 

(6) Taxes' were paid at the rate of $3.11 for every 
voter. 

(7) Delinquent taxes are due at the rate of 28 cents 
for every voter. 



170 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

(8) Allowance for jurors paid by the State was 9.7 
cents for every voter. 

(9) Received into the penitentiary, 41 ; or, one in 
every 912 voters. 

(10) Criminal expenses were $15,841.93, or 42 cents 
for every voter. 

Comparing these facts with one another, we find : 

First. That the Ninth District has greatly the advan- 
tage of the Fourth in the preponderance of white popula- 
tion ; the proportion in the former being more than 9 to 
I ; in the latter, less than a half of the whole. 

Second. That the proportion of white voters who can- 
not read and write in the Ninth District is more than 
twice as great as in the Fourth District. 

Third. That the proportion of negro voters who can 
read and write in the Ninth District is 33 per cent, larger 
than in the Fourth District. 

Fourth. That the number of both races who can read 
and write is 50 per cent, greater in the Ninth than in the 
Fourth District, in proportion to voting population. 

Fifth. That there were 2y^ times more felonies in pro- 
portion to voting population in 1900 in the Ninth District 
than in the Fourth. 

Sixth. That 49 cents more taxes in proportion to vot- 
ing population were paid per capita in the Fourth than in 
the Ninth District. 

Seventh. That delinquent taxes in the Ninth District 
are in excess of those in the Fourth, at the rate of 16 
cents for every voter. 

Eighth. That allowance for jurors paid by the State is 
twice as large in the Ninth as in the Fourth District. 

Ninth. That nearly twice as many in proportion to the 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 171 

number of voters were received into the penitentiary 
from the Ninth District as from the Fourth District. 

Tenth. That criminal expenses were nearly twice as 
large per voter in the Ninth as' in the Fourth District. 

Now, let us look these facts squarely in the face and 
consider their significance. Remember, they are facts, 
and you cannot get away from them. You have the evi- 
dence on which they rest in your possession, and no quib- 
bling or tergiversation or denial will avail. We must 
accept them, reckon with them, provide against them. 

There is a bad state of things in intelligence, in morals, 
and in economic conditions in both districts, worse on the 
whole in the Ninth than in the Fourth, and in the former 
it is chiefly among the whites, while in the latter mainly 
among the negroes. It is evident that in both there are 
many who enjoy the privilege of suffrage who have no 
permanent interest in the community and no intelligent 
apprehension of the duties growing out of it, and who are 
entirely unfit for its exercise. In the Ninth District, as 
already shown, this is chiefly among the whites ; while in 
the Fourth it is chiefly among the negroes ; but whether 
white or black, they are equally unqualified for this high 
function, and ought not to possess it. 

It is contended by some that voting is a right, and not 
a privilege ; that it is inalienable and indefeasible, and that 
no man can be justly deprived of it. This position has 
been asserted on this floor; but it is evident, from the 
history of governments — the American Republic in com- 
mon with others — that it cannot be maintained. No man 
ought to be allowed to vote who has not sufficient intelli- 
gence to understand what he is doing, and, besides, has 
not some interest in the government, which will induce 



172 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

him to vote aright As a fact, paupers, idiots, criminals', 
duellists, women and minors are disfranchised, and the 
reason which underlies these exceptions is the reason on 
which I insist as the sufficient ground for the disfran- 
chisement of those who have not something at stake in the 
maintenance of law and o.der, whether they be of the 
Caucasian or the African race. 

A friend has furnished me some extracts from The 
Outlook, an influential journal published in the city of 
New York, on this subject, which seem to be sound and 
incontrovertible. In the issue of May 24th last the editor 
says : "No man has a natural right to share in the govern- 
ment under which he lives. He has a right to be pro- 
tected in his person, property, family, reputation and 
liberty; and if the government affords such protection, 
he has no ground on which to demand, as his right, per- 
mission to participate in it. Suffrage is a prerogative and 
responsibility, and who shall exercise that responsibility 
is to be determined by the existing government. This is a 
practice justified both by philosophy and history." 

In the issue of July 27th he wrote as follows: "The 
argument that suflfrage is a natural right appears to be 
specious rather than sound. The argument may be thus 
stated: 'No man is wise enough and good enough to gov- 
ern his fellow-man ; no class is wise enough to govern an- 
other class ; therefore every man should share in the gov- 
ernment of the State.' That conclusion is a non sequitur. 
The fact that no man is wise enough and good enough to 
govern his fellow-man does not warrant the conclusion 
that every man is wise enough and good enough to share 
in governing his fellow-man. Suffrage is an artificial, not 
a natural right. It is created by, and dependent upon. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. I73 

law; a means and not an end; and the conditions on 
which it should be granted by those who have it to those 
who have it not are wholly to be determined by the con- 
sideration of the question, What conditions of suffrage 
will probably secure the more stable, just and free gov- 
ernment ?" 

These principles appear to me unanswerable, and 
emanating from New York city, and the source from 
which they come, have special significance at this time. 

But it may be said in reply to this contention, that it 
makes no distinction between the white man and the 
negro; that the United States Government recognizes 
racial lines in the disfranchisement of Indians and 
Chinese, and that the negroes ought, as a race, to be de- 
prived of suffrage. 

In reply, I beg to say, that no member of this conven- 
tion, and no citizen of Virginia, is more profoundly con- 
vinced than I of the intellectual and moral superiority of 
the Anglo-Saxon and the corresponding inferiority of the 
African and American negro. I believe that they are 
separated by nature and the God of nature by an im- 
passable gulf, and T view with horror anything looking 
towards breaking down the social and domestic barriers 
naturally and necessarily existing between them. On the 
other hand, T do not hesitate to say that there are few 
Virginians, if any, who, from childhood to mature years, 
in times of slavery, during the war between the States, 
and since that period, have lived on nearer terms" of kind- 
ness and sympathy and confidence with the negroes than 
I. I know their good points ; I appreciate their weak- 
nesses ; I have done, and shall continue to do, all in my 
power for their welfare. I am their friend, as I am the 



174 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

friend of the white man, devoutly desiring the prosperity 
and happiness of both, at the same time recognizing the 
disparity between them, and the absolute social and do- 
mestic separation which must continue to exist; but, so 
far as regards the matter in hand, as to the right of suf- 
frage, dealt with fairly and squarely under the domina- 
tion of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the 
Constitution of the United States, there is no difference. 
We may justly inveigh against these amendments. We 
may denounce them as the outgrowth of passion and hate 
and political corruption ; but there they are, a part of the 
organic law of the land, recognized and sanctified as 
such by a section of the Bill of Rights already adopted by 
this convention. 

This being true beyond contradiction, it is in order to 
ask, as I now do for your candid consideration. Who is 
the more injurious factor in a community, an ignorant, 
immoral and lazy white man, or an ignorant, immoral and 
lazy negro? Who of these goes most readily from vice 
to crime, and by his crime most frequently darkens the 
fair escutcheon of the Commonwealth? Who contributes 
less to the productive energy of the State, and is more apt 
to continue in poverty and degradation ? Without pausing 
for a reply or consuming your time in fine-spun distinc- 
tions, which add nothing to the elucidation of the subject, 
T reply emphatically, and in vicAv of what has already been 
said, both; both are "injurious factors in a community"; 
both "readily pass from vice to crime" ; "neither contri- 
butes anything to the wealth and welfare of the State"; 
and as a corollary, I add, that both ought to be eliminated 
from the sovereign and controlling element of society, 
and have pressure and incentive brought to bear upon 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 175 

them to elevate themselves and fit themselves for citizen- 
ship, and to see that their children attain a higher plane of 
virtue, intelligence and economic worth than they occupy. 

It is now time to consider what are the qualifications 
for suffrage which ought to be laid down for all classes of 
our people — in the east and the west, in the mountains 
and by the sea, for whites' and blacks alike. What are the 
terms which are believed to be equal and just in their ap- 
plication, and which will probably prove effective in elimi- 
nating the evils we deplore and in promoting gradually 
but surely the permanent welfare of the people of the 
Commonwealth ? 

This is the question which has been uppermost in the 
thoughts of many members of the convention from the 
day of its assembling, and which impends at present and 
authoritatively demands a reply, and to which, in my 
judgment, the gentleman from King George (Mr. Alon- 
cure) has contributed the nearest approximation to a cor- 
rect answer yet submitted to the convention. 

If the facts heretofore stated be true, and the princi- 
ples announced sound (and they seem to be incontrovert- 
ible), the answer to this inquiry is not far to seek, and it 
is this : 

Let those citizens of Virginia, not debarred by other 
sections of the Constitution, who are assessed with a poll- 
tax of $1.50 and a State tax on property of the value of 
at least $150, be registered and remain on the registration 
list permanently. Before they are allowed to vote, require 
a certificate to be presented to the officers of election, 
showing that these taxes have been paid six months be- 
fore election. After January i, 1904, require every appli- 
cant for registration, in addition to the above prerequi- 



176 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

sites, to present his application in writing, done with his' 
own hand in the presence of the registrar. Make no ex- 
emptions except of soldiers resident in Virginia who have 
actually served in time of war in the armies of some State 
of the Union, or of the Confederate States, or of the 
United States. Add the viva voce vote, and stop. 

This simple prescription, equally administered, will 
give us a clean-cut franchise law, which will, at one 
stroke, lop off a large mass of the incompetent and cor- 
rupt voting population of the Stat£, and put its govern- 
ment in the hands of the intelligent tax-paying portion of 
its citizens. It will be effective in ridding us of the ignor- 
ant and vicious negroes, and of the abandoned and worth- 
less whites, and will insure the vote being counted, and 
reported as cast. 

The chief objection that I have heard urged to this 
scheme of suffrage is that, along with many stupid and 
vicious whites, some worthy and good citizens will be dis- 
franchised. And this is doubtless true : but it must be 
remembered that this is one of the necessary incidents of 
organized society, and that no citizen has a right to com- 
plain of such abridgement or to regard it as a hardship, 
when it is essential to the welfare of the body politic. 
Every one of us has to yield many rights and privileges 
by reason of our relations to society, and whatever is 
necessary for the social well-being must be given up by 
the individual. I will not insult your intelligence and 
waste your time in arguing or illustrating this proposition. 
It is self-evidcntly true and universallv recognized. 

It is also reasonably true that most of those fit by in- 
telligence and character to discharge the duty of suffrage, 
and who are disfranchised, will not continue long in this 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 177 

position, but will be incited to go to work to accumulate 
something, and will soon enter the ranks of qualified 
voters, who will contribute to the welfare of the State, to 
their own personal benefit, and to the exaltation of the 
dignity and prosperity of the Commonwealth. 

Some of the grounds on which this simple and effec- 
tive mode of dealing with this important subject are based 
are as follows: 

1. It is honest and just and right. You need no "un- 
derstanding clause" or "grandfather provision," about 
which thoughtful men everywhere not only doubt, but 
from which they shrink with moral aversion. You will 
not be afraid of the courts'. Conscience will not torment 
you. You can look into the face of God and feel that you 
have His approval. 

As has already been shown, no man is entitled to the 
privilege of voting who does not value it and know how 
to use it, and who has no such interest in the community 
as will conduce to his using it aright. No injustice is done 
any one who has not character and industry enough to 
accumulate the paltry sum needed to make him a voter, 
and if at first some worthy men are debarred, it is not 
injustice to them, but an incentive to put themselves in a 
position where they can be admitted to suffrage right- 
eously. 

2. The adoption of such a suffrage requirement will 
immediately add thousands and tens of thousands of 
names to the list of tax-payers within the State. Who can 
estimate the number in Virginia at the present time who 
exercise the right of voting and who have far more than 
$150 worth of property, but who never list or pay taxes 
on their property ? Such men will be brought to the book, 



178 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

and if they wish to vote will have to come forward and 
bear some share of the burden of sustaining the govern- 
ment. 

3. Another desirable end that will be accomplished is 
found in the incentive furnished the young men of the 
Commonwealth to save, instead of squandering, their 
earnings ; to accumulate something, so that they may be- 
come and be recognized as independent and rightful 
voters, with all the privileges and immunities appertain- 
ing thereto. At present our young men have no such in- 
centive and inspiration, and too many of them not only 
live up to, but squander their means and acquire habits of 
thriftlessness, and instead of becoming productive factors 
grow into bummers and incompetents and dead-heads — 
an incubus on society. Now, let our young men learn that 
in order to occupy a reputable position among their fel- 
lows, they must be possessed of this modicum of property 
and they will go to work to acquire it, and, having suc- 
ceeded, the desire of accumulation will be stimulated, and 
the number of thrifty and independent citizens will be 
largely increased. I verily believe that if this scheme be 
adopted more will be done for the financial progress of 
the State, for its economic strength, for its growth in 
inoral power, than by any other means that can be de- 
vised. Who can doubt that within ten years the number 
of tax-payers in old Virginia will be at least doubled, and 
perhaps trebled ; that capable men will be found for posi-' 
tions of importance in our cities and towns, and that our 
country regions, now being stripped of population, will 
gradually fill up with aspiring and earnest men, who will 
add to the resources of the Commonwealth by increasing 
its productive capacity, and found homes, w^hich will be 
the abode of comfort and happiness. 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 179 

4. The last ground on which I put the proposition I 
support is that it will do much to purify politics by purg- 
ing and elevating the electorate. As at present consti- 
tuted, the voting population in a portion of the State con- 
sists largely of ignorant negroes, who have no more intel- 
ligent interest in the result of elections than so many 
sheep. In other portions of the Commonwealth there is 
by no means so large, but an appreciable, element of 
white voters more venal than the negroes, and in politics 
more corrupt. Both these elements will be eliminated, 
and, as a consequence, bossism and ring-rule will be 
abated ; honorable, intelligent gentlemen, who, under the 
corruption now existing, have withdrawn from the arena, 
will come forward as active and controlling factors in the 
government, to the manifest improvement of every inter- 
est held dear by intelligent people. Thus, instead of the 
rascality and fraud so commonly practiced, and the con- 
sequent choice of incompetent and sometimes of base 
men, for governmental service, we may expect to see the 
return of the day when Virginia's honored sons are 
among the foremost in the land, and the old Common- 
wealth shall take and hold her rightful place in the galaxy 
of States'. 

But I \v\\\ be asked, What about the Norfolk Demo- 
cratic Convention of 1900? Did it not promise that no 
white man shall be disfranchised?" To which I reply by 
asking, "Did the Norfolk convention have authority to 
make such a promise ?" "Was not its action in this mat- 
ter ultra vires?" "If it had power to bind this convention 
in this respect, does not its power to bind reach to any 
and every other point which it chose to handle ?" This is' 
a reducHo ad ahsiirdum, and I therefore assert, without 



i8o ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

fear of successful contradiction, that the dictum of that 
convention has no more legitimate force on this body or 
on any member of it than the pronunciamento of the 
secret conclave of the Pope of Rome, or of a circle of 
mumbling Buddhist priests in India or China. We are 
here to obey the behests of no man or body of men, but to 
consult together and conclude what is best for the people 
of Virginia, and to embody that in its organic law. 

"But what about the promises made before the late 
election on the hustings and in the newspapers, by certain 
members of this convention, and other trustworthy citi- 
zens, to the effect that no white man of Virginia shall be 
disfranchised as the result of our work?" To which I 
reply, as I have frequently replied to such inquiries, that 
the convention has never made any stich pledge, and that 
the promise rests on the responsibility of those who made 
it, and only on that. It is far from my purpose to reflect 
on their action or to impugn their motives. All that I as- 
sert is that their action does not bind me or this conven- 
tion. They are intelligent, they are upright, they knew 
what they w^ere doing, they are responsible for what they 
have done ; but they cannot implicate me or any other per- 
son for whom they were not specifically authorized to 
speak. 

But I am told that "the statements were made ; that 
they w^ere made by gentlemen of character and worth" ; 
and it is added, "that if they were not contradicted, any 
man who failed to contradict them became responsible for 
them !" 

Were there not such an element of Jesuitry and dan- 
gerous error in this contention as to render it destructive 
of good morals and of the very foundations of society, it 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. i8i 

is so silly as to be amusing and mirth-provoking. That I, 
forsooth, can give to the world an opinion in regard to 
some important matter within the province of this con- 
vention, and an assurance that it will be done in order 
that certain conditions may be brought about, and that, as 
a consequence, any one or all of you, who become cogni- 
zant of the facts and fail to declare yourselves to the con- 
trary, put yourselves under obligation when the matter 
comes before the convention to sustain my opinion by 
your vote and to bring to pass the prophesy I have made, 
is too ridiculous to be considered. 

If moral absurdity can rise higher than this, I can re- 
call no instance of it in the course of history or exper- 
ience. 

We stand here, then, gentlemen, as freemen, intelli- 
gent freemen, with no shackles on our limbs or con- 
sciences ; not to do what others dictate, but what our in- 
telligent judgments indicate to be right and best for the 
interests of the great State we represent ; and I beg you 
not to disgrace the "Mother of States and Statesmen" by 
putting such equivocal and suspicious provisions into her 
Constitution as the "understanding" and the "grand- 
father" clauses. I assure you that neither of these pro- 
visions meets with the approval of the enlightened and 
God-fearing people of Virginia. I have talked to many 
citizens of Richmond, and of other portions of the State, 
and have met with none who do not spue these things out 
of their mouths. The idea of enacting anything that may 
be repudiated by the Supreme Court of the United States 
is abhorrent to them and to me. On the contrary, they 
demand that we shall resort to the same honorable and 
straightforward means used by the fathers and founders 



i82 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

of the republic in order to rid the electorate of the ignor- 
ant and incompetent classes. There is no other way of 
doing it that I have seen pointed out, or that I can think 
of, in accord with the maintenance of the honor and dig- 
nity of the Commonwealth, or of our own personal in- 
tegrity. 

But there is a knottier problem yet to be considered — 
a question of casuistry — which probably perplexes and 
rests heavily on the minds of some of the members of this 
convention. It may be stated thus : What is the man to do 
who in his canvass, or as a condition to his election as a 
member of the convention, specifically stated that so far 
as he is concerned, he would vote for the disfranchise- 
ment of no white man? How is he to get around this 
pledge? How is he to retain his' self respect and the confi- 
dence of his fellow-citizens if he votes for a scheme of 
suflfrage which, in the nature of things, must disfranchise 
some of this class ? 

Suppose that there is a member of this convention 
who stands in this attitude, who put himself in it believ- 
ing that it was possible to maintain it, and that it was for 
the welfare of Virginia that it should be maintained, but 
who has now become convinced that it is impracticable, 
that the best interests of the Commonwealth, its honor 
and its dignity, the virtue and the well-being of its peo- 
ple, demand, that, along with the great mass of irrespon- 
sible negroes', some irresponsible whites must be debarred 
from suffrage : is he bound to be guided and governed in 
his actions as a member of this convention by former 
and immature impressions or by later and settled convic- 
tions of what he deems right and just and honest, and 
demanded by every interest of enlightened statesmanship, 



ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 183 

by every economic and moral consideration looking to the 
prosperity and happiness of the people? He is in a di- 
lemma ! Which horn shall he choose ? He must take one 
or the other ! If he acts on former and immature, though 
honest, impressions formed and expressed prior to neces- 
sary investigation, he violates present intelligent convic- 
tions, casts his vote against what he believes to be essen- 
tial to the good of society, and, so far as in him lies, does' 
what he can to perpetuate the degradation of his people, 
acting as a mere tool to carry out the ignorant and ill- 
considered wishes of his constituency. H, on the other 
hand, he follows the leading of his conscience and judg- 
ment, enlightened and instructed by a more thorough per- 
ception of the facts of the case and the demands' of his 
situation, he acknowledges himself to have been guilty of 
error in making a heedless pledge, but fulfils his duty as a 
representative of the people by obtaining for them a form 
of government which shall promote their best interests, 
and in its wholesome and health-giving effects' tend to 
crown the old Commonwealth with glory and honor. 

Mr. Chairman, all of us were probably told in our 
childhood, by honorable and solicitious parents, that "two 
wrongs never make a right." So far from its being true 
that because a man has been guilty of a wrong he ought to 
adhere to it, exactly the reverse is true. Just so soon as I 
am convinced that I am wrong in thought, in feeling, in 
action, I must forsake it, turn from it, and choose and do 
the right. "To thine own self be true, and it will follow 
as the day, the night, thou canst not then be false to 
any man." 

Some of you, I am sure, will remember that pregnant 
sentence which flowed from the pen of the immortal 



i84 ADDRESSES AND PAPERS. 

Robert E. Lee in a letter to one of his sons, then a cadet 
at West Point: "Duty," says he, "is the subUmest word 
in the English language." What we ought to do, it is our 
duty to do. Duty is present, pressing, imperative — what 
the great Kant called "the categorical imperative." It 
cannot be guiltlessly shirked, but must be unflinchingly 
met and discharged, and the obligation resting on every 
one of us is to meet our responsibility as we see it, know- 
ing that we must give account to our consciences, to our 
fellow-men, and to our God. 

Rev. Lewis W. Green, D. D., who was well known in 
Virginia fifty years ago as one of its most learned, elo- 
quent and useful citizens, has left on record a sentence 
something like the following: "Honesty, honesty, honesty ! 
Nothing but upright, downright, straightforward honesty 
will avail as the basis of good character." 

And so I say that "honesty — and nothing but honesty, 
upright, downright, straightforward honesty" — will an- 
swer in the frameivork of the fundamental law of an en- 
lightened Commomvealth ! 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, for your 
kind and patient attention 1 



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